Two more IWF events have been affected by coronavirus ©IWF

Two International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) affiliated events - the Pan American Youth Championships and the African Championships have been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The African Championships were scheduled to take place from June 15 to 23 in Vacoas in the nation of Mauritius and will be moved to a later date.

It is one of the qualification tournaments for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, with the postponement of the Games being the reason cited for the move from the Executive Board of the Weightlifting Federation of Africa.

The Pan American Weightlifting Federation (PAWF) held an online Executive Board meeting to discuss the problems caused by the pandemic and ultimately decided to postpone the Youth Championships.

Egypt's Sara Ahmed was the only African woman to win an Olympic medal at Rio 2016 ©Getty Images
Egypt's Sara Ahmed was the only African woman to win an Olympic medal at Rio 2016 ©Getty Images

It was originally scheduled to take place from June 23 to 28 in the United States at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem in North Carolina.

Due to the lack of training ability for athletes and a struggle to maintain consistent doping control under the current situation, the PAWF competition calendar will not resume before September.

The Board will decide the calendar next month.