Local sports body commits to national canoe champs after lockdown

AFTER a number of world championship events were cancelled by the International Canoe Federation due to the coronavirus pandemic, the administrators at Canoeing South Africa put plans into place to ensure all national championships affected by Covid-19 will have a space in the 2020 calendar.

The International Canoeing Federation cancelled the Junior and U23 Sprint World Championships in Germany in July and the Marathon World Championships in Norway in September. This could have led to the cancellation of South Africa’s national championships.

President of Canoeing South Africa, Kim Pople is confident that once normality resumes, they will be able to nail down dates for the various national championship events that have been affected.

“We are fully committed to running all our national championship events,” said Kim. “We don’t know when they will be just yet, but we will be able to get a better idea when the lockdown is over.

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“Internationally, the ICF cancelled the Marathon World Championships, the Olympic qualifying event and the Junior and U23 Sprint World Championships. It released a statement saying the Canoe Polo World Championships have been moved to next year, however, the Ocean Racing World Championships are still scheduled to take place in September,” said Kim.

Races

Canoeing South Africa has been in contact with race organisers and will make sure that spots are opened up in the calendar to hot the national championships later in the year.

“While some events like the Umkomaas Marathon and the Berg are heavily dependent on seasonal water, we have asked races that aren’t water dependent to rather postpone to later in the year. There is going to be a bit of juggling to do with the calendar, but we are hopeful that we will get as many races in as possible later in the year, said Kim.

Stay home

Even with the added time to plan for the last quarter of the year, Kim encouraged everyone to continue to adhere to the measures that have been put in place by the government.

“Right now we just want to make sure that everyone in South Africa stays home, safe and healthy. We will just have to sit tight and wait for direction from our government,” she added.

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