[Dean Ratcliffe]

This pandemic has almost certainly put an end to the current 2020 race season, it is required that event organisers act responsibly and set strict guidelines in order for sporting activities to recommence. They need to do this just to get things moving and reinstate the sports event sector.

Realistically how quickly things will be allowed to continue will depend on far more than new event guidelines. Both the ITU and Ironman have already postponed their 2020 world championships. With Ironman setting new dates in early 2021 and ITU cancelling this years ITU World Series Grand final in Edmonton, saying age group qualifiers for this years champs will automatically qualify for a 2021 grand final place.

The 2021 ITU grand final is currently planned to take place in Burmuda, the Ironman 2020 70.3 New Zealand world champs and 2020 Ironman (Kona) world champs have been tentatively scheduled for first quarter of 2021.

Of course the reason no firm commitment can be made is that world travel will not depend on event organisers guidelines but on the governments allowing foreigners to visit their shores.

The UK and USA still have massive problems with this virus as each country deals differently with the pandemic. Who know’s how things will develop in each country and what timescales we are looking at! Of course the scheduling and sanctioning of these events will depend on each hosting countries policies.

Smaller events at home in fact should be far simpler to manage, but will be dependent on the ever changing climate. This is why I believe things have to start small first and grow. Local clubs once allowed can start to organise in house events where local sporting communities can gather and carry out small events at short notice. This type of event will not need to follow the strict guidelines set by IM but just show caution towards possible infection.

I believe that initially this is what has to happen. Larger events that take time you advertise and organised with too long a forward date always have the risk of policy changes causing cancellation and unrecoverable costs.

So I think for 2021 this is what we can expect, local small events to slowly build confidence in sports participation again. Let’s embrace this and hope that the pandemic reduces in severity so that our world can return to the normal sporting landscape that we once knew!