Water Polo Australia (WPA) has decided to postpone the 2021 National State Championships.
Originally slated to be held in Adelaide (September) and Perth (December) this year, with current COVID-19 restrictions in place around the country, impacting travel as well as the delivery of large-scale community events, has made the decision necessary. While we are hopeful the situation will improve, there are multiple links between the events the postponement of the September event, impacts on the December event as well.
Water Polo Australia CEO Richard McInnes said the decision to postpone was made in consultation with the respective State Executives and was not taken lightly, but designed to give every State an equal opportunity to participate
“2021 continues to present us with many challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the safety of our community continues to be of utmost importance along with the importance of ensuring all State teams can participate in this event,” McInnes said.
“We understand the importance of this event in our National Competitions Calendar, however the current state of play across the country means it is not feasible to run the National State Championships on the original planned dates.
“We have assessed a range of contingency options and our collective position is to reschedule the 15U/17U event, in Adelaide to December 11 to 14 and the 19U event to January 5 to 8, in Perth” he said.
“In these challenging times, it is imperative that our community work together for the best outcomes for the players. To that end, the postponement creates an overlap with State teams trying to prepare while Club competitions are running and Club teams are preparing for the AYWPC in January. This is very similar to our National teams preparing for an Olympic Games or World Championships and players playing AWL. It is important there is good communication between the coaches of the respective teams and that expectations are managed appropriately”
“There are range of additional factors to also consider around these events including minimising the impact on missed school time, cost of travel and accommodation, the flow on impact into other event such as the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships and Australian Waterpolo League (AWL), which while only impacting on a small number of players, does impact heavily on our coaching and refereeing personnel. Naturally we will continue to monitor the situation and hope not to have to make additional changes”
