Swimming New Zealand is extremely disappointed that we have been forced to make the difficult decision to not permit swimmers from within the Auckland City boundary (the Auckland and Counties swimming regions) to compete at the Aon 2020 NZ Short Course Championships, whilst the Auckland region remains in Level 2 restrictions.
We had originally received approval last week for the Event Management
Plan to host the event with Aucklanders attending safely, housed outside in
multiple marquees of up to 100 each. However, this week, the Hamilton City
Council has adjusted its interpretation of the Level 2 restrictions for
Aucklanders and is now restricting the total number of Aucklanders allowed
on-site to 100 per session. (There are currently 213 Auckland swimmers entered
plus coaches and managers, so close to 300 Aucklanders in total). We have
considered all possible options to continue hosting the event with Aucklanders
competing, but given the stringent restrictions now put in place, this is no
longer possible. Therefore, Auckland swimmers will no longer be able to compete
at the event while Auckland is under a Level 2 restriction.
With the government updating Auckland’s Alert Level on Monday 5 October
and the likelihood that Auckland’s Level restriction will drop to Level 1 at
11.59 pm on Wednesday 7 October,
Aucklanders will be welcome to compete in the events they have entered
in from Thursday onwards should the Alert Level drop to Level 1.
We deeply regret the need to exclude Aucklanders from (hopefully) the
first two days of the event but we simply cannot operate the event in
accordance with Hamilton City Councils requirements, with a large number of
Aucklanders entered. We hope that if Auckland moves to Level 1 on Wed 7th
October, we will look forward to seeing Aucklanders racing from Thursday 8th.
Information relating to refunds for Tuesday and Wednesday’s events will
be circulated shortly.
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