Durban - The sporting community was dealt another blow on Monday after the organisers of the aQuellé Tour Durban cycle race announced that the race would be postponed to a date later in the year.
Event director, Alec Lenfernahe, said decision to postpone the aQuellé Tour Durban was taken after extensive consultation with the UCI, Cycling South Africa, KZN Cycling, the event sponsors and partners and stakeholders in the cycling community as the event sought to balance the significant public support for the event while ensuring that it unreservedly supports all of the initiatives announced in the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in South Africa.
“First and foremost we have to look after the health and wellbeing of every single participant, and all of our staff, marshalls and volunteers. To that end we have been guided by national and regional governmental departments, who have been very helpful and clear in their guidelines. We are working with the relevant role players in a bid to locating a suitable weekend in spring that can host the two days of events as planned. We will do all in our power to ensure that the event, which clearly has a very large following, can go ahead, and at the same time to retain the benefit to The Domino Foundation that is the beneficiary of the race," he said.
Lenfernahe said they will do everything that they can to give riders their weekend riding on full road closure on Durban’s highways, and sustain the important financial lifeline to The Domino Foundation by way of #Ride4Good.
Lenferna said that while it was clearly not an option to stage the race at the end of April, he was working hard with the UCI, Cycling SA and KZN Cycling as part of the enforced reorganisation of the cycling calendars in a bid to postpone rather than cancel the race.
He said that the new date for the event would be announced early next month and that all the entries received would be fully transferrable to the new date.
“Evaluating all the circumstances over the next months, and if we can still go ahead later in the year, we should be able to retain all the appeal of the event in spring when there is stable weather before the full rainy season commences," Lenferna said.
Here is a list of other sporting events that have been cancelled / postponed so far:
Soccer
- Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Irvin Khoza on Monday afternoon announced the suspension of all midweek and weekend league matches. This includes the crunch match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates.
Athletics
- Postponement of all schools athletics including the ASA National Primary Schools T&F Championships which was scheduled for Pietermaritzburg this week. Postponement of all club and provincial activities, including Fun Runs, Park Runs, Road-Running, Cross Country, Trail Running and Track & Field events. Postponement of all ASA championships including the ASA Twizza National U16 - U20 Track and Field Championships; the 2020 ASA Athletics Grand Prix Series; and the 3Sixty Life & Sizwe Medical ASA Senior T&F + Combined Events.
Lifesaving
- Wimpy Lifesaving National Club Championships in Port Elizabeth.
For more updates on the postponement or cancellation of events, check out iol.co.za/sport