In this file photo taken on Aug 29, 2019 World Athletics President Sebastian Coe speaks during an interview in Zurich, Switzerland. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)

BEIJING —World Athletics President Sebastian Coe hopes the COVID-19 pandemic can be contained before the end of the summer, so that athletes can safely return to competitions and the rescheduled World Indoor Championships shall not be postponed once again.

"The issue for us is uncertainty. We don't know when the season might be able to be started again, I sincerely hope that we have contained the virus before the end of the summer, which should allow us to continue with the dates that have been selected for Nanjing in 2021," Coe said in a phone interview with Xinhua on Friday.

The World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing were due to be held in the Chinese city on March 13-15, but were postponed until next year amid the coronavirus epidemic.

We were very sorry that the championships had to be postponed, although we completely understand why. And that was the right decision

Sebastian Coe, President, World Athletics 

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The World Athletics Council later approved the new dates of the biennial event, which will now take place on March 19-21 in 2021.

"We were very sorry that the championships had to be postponed, although we completely understand why. And that was the right decision," Coe said. "We look forward to being in Nanjing to celebrate human endeavour and great athletic ability in March of next year."

The World Athletics Indoor Championships were among the first batch of major sports events affected by COVID-19. Following the worldwide outbreak of the pandemic, more and more events have been added to the list for postponement or cancellation, including the Tokyo Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and local organizing committee on Monday jointly announced the decision to host the Tokyo Olympic Games from July 23 to August 8, 2021. And in consequence, World Athletics has decided to postpone the 2021 World Athletics Championships in Oregon to 2022.

According to Coe, the plan is to reschedule the event to the summer of 2022 and the global governing body of the sport are now quite close to accommodating with organizers of 2022 Commonwealth Games and the European Athletics Championships.

"Not everybody is going to end up with a set of solutions which is perfect, but I'm trying to navigate a way through to enable the athletes to compete - to compete safely and to compete with some recovery between those events," Coe said.

"I wish I could tell when it might be possible for our competitions to start again. And the athletes are very clear that they want the opportunity when it is safe to be able to compete again. But that becomes more difficult as longer as it takes for many of nations to deal with COVID-19," he added.

"At this moment we only have 19 federations in the whole of our sport that do not have a case of COVID-19. And we have 214 federations. So that gives you a feel of the challenge that we face."

Coe also revealed that a modified qualification system for Tokyo Olympics will be in place by next week, which will help those athletes who have not yet qualified know where they stand.

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All the international sports federations, including World Athletics, have agreed to the IOC's proposal that all athletes currently qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will remain qualified for next year's event. In athletics, some 50 percent of the places have already been taken before the outbreak of the virus. And Coe pledged to adopt a qualification system that all athletes can pursue their Olympic dreams under safe and fair circumstance.

"Thank you is my message to the athletes all over the world, who have been very innovative, resilient and mentally strong," Coe said. "The disappointment of losing an Olympic Games is big. But strong athletes will come back and they will compete as well in 2021 as they would have done in 2020."