PWA Canarie 2021… nada!

Come aveva anticipato il buon Gollito ai “microfoni” del nostro Insider (questo e altri approfondimenti sull’attività agonistica 2021 li trovate nell’omonina rubrica sul numero di giugno/luglio di Wind News in distribuzione la settimana prossima)… la tappa freestyle di Fuerte è saltata.
Purtroppo insieme a lei, tutti e tre le tappe delle Canarie (Pozo, Tenerife e Fuerteventura) sono state annullate  per il secondo anno consecutivo sia per l’incertezze legate alle restrizioni e sia per la mancanza di risorse economiche per supportare eventi i cui costi sono lievitati a causa della pandemia.
Al colpo già abbastanza pesante per il calendario 2021 del PWA, che si vede sfilare un caposaldo come le Canarie, si aggiunge la cancellazione del nuovo evento in Sri Lanka, posticipato al 2022 e pure della tappa in Nuova Caledonia…
Al momento il calendario “rimasto” è quello sotto e la tappa slalom in Israele, in forte dubbio per la situazione di guerra dei giorni scorsi, sembra ora confermata… al proposito qualche sicurezza in più, ce l’ha data al riguardo Matteo Iachino (sempre nella rubrica dell’Insider l’abbiamo “intervistato” riguardo ai suoi impegni agonistici per questo 2021) che ha sentito telefonicamente Arnon Dagan, uno degli organizzatori dell’evento, che ha confermato che nonostante quel che sta succedendo, la gara si farà… al massimo verrà posticipata.

Changes to 2021 PWA Calendar

Dear Friends

We hope you are all well and continuing to find your way through these unusual times.

We are excited to be gearing up for the first return of PWA World Cup Slalom in 18 months in Israel in a few weeks, but unfortunately the news elsewhere on the tour is not as positive. Efforts to combat the pandemic have made great steps forward as vaccination programs have been rolled out, but these programs have not taken effect as fast as had been hoped and there are still considerable restrictions in place, as well as a lot of uncertainty about when those restriction can be reliably expected to be removed.

Every event is different and the exact reasons that decide whether an event can go ahead or not vary, but in each case, COVID-19 has been the cause of those issues. The decision to cancel an event is not one that the PWA takes itself, but that has been taken locally by either the local event organiser, local or national authorities whose permission is required for the event, or by sponsors or other bodies funding events, based on the circumstances they find themselves in.

As we have got further and further into the year, the time left for the impact of the COVID pandemic to be reduced has become less and less and, now, unfortunately, we have to announce the cancellation of several events due to COVID-19 restrictions.

All three of the Canaries events have had to be cancelled due to ongoing uncertainty about restrictions, and increased costs created by the pandemic, meaning that there will not be events at Pozo, Fuerteventura or Tenerife for the second year running. The ongoing construction work at the beach at Pozo also created significant difficulties.

The new slalom event planned for Sri Lanka has now been postponed until 2022 also, after the local tourism authorities, who are heavily supporting the event, decided that they would have to postpone due to increasing COVID levels in the country.

The biennial PWA Tour visit to New Caledonia has also been cancelled for 2021 due to substantial travel restrictions that remain in place with no projected easing in good time for the event to go ahead.

In each case we thank our local partners for their continued efforts despite the challenges they have faced, and we look forward to being able to bring the tour back to all of our regular venues in 2022.

The Croatia slalom event will go ahead, and we are currently studying options to potentially upgrade the event from a 2 star event to a full counting 5 star World Cup, in light of other cancellations and to provide more top level competition for the riders, the fans and the industry. We will bring you more news as this situation develops.

The remaining events on the calendar in Korea, Klitmoller and Sylt are all still in planning and we have high hopes that they can go ahead.

As always, we thank you for your understanding in the complicated times we are all going through, and we will bring you more updates as we have them.

Kind regards.

The PWA