Sugar Bowl postponed over New Orleans attack

NEW ORLEANS - The Sugar Bowl, a major US college football playoff game that has drawn tens of thousands of fans to New Orleans, has been postponed for one day in the wake of

the deadly truck-ramming attack on Jan 1

, officials said.

“All agree that it’s in the best interest of everybody... that we postpone the game for 24 hours,” Sugar Bowl chief executive Jeff Hundley told a press conference about the game pitting the University of Georgia against the University of Notre Dame.

The game, originally scheduled for the evening of Jan 1, will now begin at 3pm on Jan 2 (5am on Jan 3, Singapore time), organisers said in a statement.

“The postponement will allow for additional security resources to be put in place in order to maintain the typical standards of a major event in the Caesars Superdome,” the statement said, noting that some officers were redployed to the attack probe.

A Georgia student was critically injured in the attack, the university’s president announced.

Notre Dame announced that all team personnel had been accounted for.

The two teams are vying for a spot in the college football playoff semifinals.

The Sugar Bowl is to take place at New Orleans’s Superdome, which also will host the National Football League’s showpiece Super Bowl, one of the biggest sporting events of the year, on Feb 9. The venue puts maximum capacity for football games at just under 75,000.

Visitors also flock to New Orleans every year for the annual Mardi Gras festivities. The final day of those celebrations is March 4, but weeks of parties and revelry take place in the run-up. AFP