Winter Sports - Tokyo's World Figure Skating Championships postponed

Large areas of Japan have been devastated by Friday's earthquake

The World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo have been postponed following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

After large parts of the country were devastated on Friday, the International Skating Union said it "is not possible" to host the seven-day event.

Britain had been set to send an eight-strong team to Japan.

The championships were scheduled to take place between 21-27 March, while April's new international team event in Yokohama has also been called off.

Britain's team included ice dance pair John and Sinead Kerr, the current European Championships bronze medallists and a medal hope at the World Championships.

They would have been joined in ice dance by Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland, with Stacey Kemp and David King due to compete in the pairs and David Richardson and Jenna McCorkell in the individual competition.

The team were set to fly out to Japan on Friday but will remain at their training bases, which are in Nottingham, Belgium, Poland and the United States.

It has still to be decided whether the event should be cancelled, or just postponed.

An ISU spokesperson said: "Our first concern has to be the security of the athletes, the spectators and everyone else involved."

ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said: "Faced with these developments and the gravity of the situation in Japan, the ISU, in consultation with the Japanese skating federation and on the advice of the Japanese authorities, has concluded that staging the world championships is not possible."

Moving the world championships to a new date would only be possible when Japanese authorities had given assurances that the situation had returned to normal, allowing the event to be staged in "complete security," Cinquanta added.

It is the first time in 50 years the World Figure Skating Championships have been called off.

The 1961 championships in Prague were called off after an American delegation was killed when their plane crashed on landing in Brussels.