Triathlon postponement of Hamburg WTCS and World Age-Group Championships in Edmonton.
The German city of Hamburg, scheduled to host the third leg of the World Triathlon Championship Series on July 10/11 has be postponed until further notice with World Triathlon specifying the reason as “ongoing restrictions related with the pandemic”.
Also postponed is the World Triathlon Age-Group Championships in the Canadian city of Edmonton set to run August 17 to 22 citing the inability “to grant travel exemptions to international age-group athletes”.
Just as we were seeing some light at the end of the tunnel for the return of some Triathlon Championship events this summer this will be a disappointing blow to the sport. Particularly, with the Leeds WTCS set to go ahead tomorrow and having recently seen successful COVID-19 secure races held at Yokohama, and Arzachena with all athletes returning to their nations across the globe with negative test results.
Following the World Triathlon Board announcement, it appears the Hamburg race postponement is due to guidelines and precautions mandated by German public health entities in relation to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with Germany registering more covid cases and deaths. The race organisers and DTU [German Triathlon Federation] are now working with the City of Hamburg to secure a new race date later in the year.
The Hamburg postponement was followed by the World Triathlon Executive Board announcing that agreement had been reached that the World Triathlon Age-Group Championships will not take place in the Candian city of Edmonton, scheduled to run from August 17 to 22.
With Canadian authorities barring entry to Canada, to most foreign nationals this decision was down to travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. This would make it “impossible” for most of the age-group athletes to travel to Canada said World Triathlon further stating that “while we hoped the COVID-19 situation regarding international travel would have improved over the past few months, unfortunately this has not been the case.”
World Triathlon said the Age-Group Championships was predicted to be the “best ever” with more than 3,000 athletes expected to participate, but the governing body insisted it was still working to find an alternative location for the event and would evaluate all possible new venue options.
Unfortunately, the news does not get any better as the strict covid measures prevail. Whilst the World Triathlon Multisport Championships in Almere-Amsterdam in September will still happen this year it just won’t be so ‘Multi’, as the duathlon, cross and aquathlon events have been cancelled. Athletes who qualified for and planned to compete in the long-distance triathlon and aqua-bike championships will still be able to race in those events—contingent on meeting the Netherlands travel requirements.
