The Oceania Climbing Championships due to run 28/9 March, have now officially postponed. Last night the International Federation of Sport Climbing made the call, along with local officials involved in the Oceania competition. The event was to be the final chance for athletes from the Oceania region to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Late last week the competition looked to still be going ahead with controls being put in place to keep athletes safe. After Scott Morrison announced a mandatory 14 day self isolation for anyone arriving into Australia as of midnight Monday 16th, the likelihood of Oceania going ahead seemed zero. The isolation would mean any athletes travelling from overseas would be unable to compete.
The African Championships were also postponed overnight, meaning all Continental Championships have been postponed, aside from Pan America that finished 1stMarch. Earlier this month the Euro and Asian championships were postponed as well. The Asian Champs were initially rescheduled for 25 April to 3 May, however these have been postponed again. Euro Champs have been postponed to 15-22 June.\
No date has been announced for the rescheduled Oceania event.
Much of the first half of the IFSC world cup season has also been moved to the second half of the year. A move which needed to be made but will be interesting as many athletes had planned on using the World Cup events as warm ups for the Olympics.
Currently the Olympics are still going ahead as planned. There’s still a few months until it officially kicks off which should hopefully be enough time for things to come under control. One extreme measure which could play out is a crowdless games.
Pushing aside the bad news, we all need to brace ourselves for some big things in the outdoor world now. Many of the top Australian athletes are also outdoor climbers and having been cooped up indoors for the past months training their guts out, there’s a strong chance we will see some hard climbing go down. I’m excited.
For a full list of the effected IFSC comps visit the link below.
https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/news/319-update-on-ifsc-competitions