Swim Ireland update on the upcoming Irish SC Winter Meet
On Friday 27th November, the Government of Ireland announced that as of Wednesday 2nd December, the Republic of Ireland would move from Level 5 restrictions within its ‘Living with COVID-19’ Framework to Level 3 – but a Level 3 with some further and additional enhancements to that given within their published Framework
One of the additional restrictions articulated at this time and to remain in force for the majority of this month was in relation to sports competitions (described as ‘matches and events’ within the release). The directive from the Government stated that no matches or other sporting events should take place, with an exception made for ‘elite’ sports. On the basis that this is defined in a way that will only include a small group of people, it is clear that for a large proportion of our athletes who entered the Irish Winter SC Meet and were looking forward to racing with their swimming friends, this will no longer be possible for them
For those athletes that we are able to deem as ‘elite’ (where we would use the terminology ‘Performance’), we will follow the definition which features in our ‘Swimming & Living with COVID-19 Framework’ at Level 3. Athletes who are deemed to be able to race at the Irish Winter SC Meet under this definition will be contacted separately; if you do not receive such an email from us, we are sorry to say that on this occasion, we will not be able to progress with your entry on this occasion
This is a blow for us all. It’s not the first and between now and society dealing with this virus once and for all, it is unlikely to be the last. We know that so many of you were looking forward to this, having not formally raced for so long and to have this taken away from us at the eleventh hour makes it all the more difficult. But we’ve been here before and it’s not defeated us. This is a temporary problem and in the grand scheme of things, with so much to look forward to in the new year when vaccines are readily available, it is something that we can and will deal with. We are so proud of our aquatics community. We have stood together (or at least two metres apart when we have been able to see one another at times) and the resolve and resilience displayed by you with training on, training off, competitions on, competitions off, time trials on, time trials off…will be something that we in Swim Ireland will certainly never forget
We will announce in the days to come how we will go back to the Virtual Time Trials concept that we had before Level 5 commenced. We have Christmas to look forward to and 2021 will undoubtedly have its challenges, but we sincerely hope that we are over the worst that this pandemic has to throw at us
Thank you all for your understanding of something that is out of our hands. We keep battling for our sport and we keep battling for you – the people who make our sport the wonderful thing that it is. We’ll be back in touch soon with some better news – and please do continue to take care
Dr Jon Rudd MSc, B.Ed (Hons)
National Performance Director (Swimming & Diving)