Wiltshire Athletic Association

aroyall

**IMPORTANT: Wiltshire Road Race League 2020 Announcement**

By

Following previous updates regarding the rescheduling, postponement and cancellation of various fixtures within the 2020 WRRL, Wiltshire Athletic Association is today in the position to sadly announce the cancellation of the 2020 league.

We know this will come as a disappointment to many, but we feel this is now the best course of action to take. Some of the considerations have been outlined below.

• There are no longer enough fixtures left to constitute a league, whilst rescheduled, postponed or alternative races fall later in the year clashing with WORL fixtures (following the decision to ensure the WRRL and WORL are separate without overlap, extending the league is not a viable option)

• Given the uncertainty, financial outlay and risk of preparing for an event later in the year, I feel it is not responsible to place any pressure on event organisers to press ahead to satisfy WRRL inclusion when subsequent postponement is possible

It must also be considered that there remains a real risk at mass participation events and we are currently unsure what shape events may take later in the year. Some athletes may be unable to compete for a variety of reasons and events may have restricted numbers meaning athletes will struggle to get a place.

County Championships

Just for now, we are not able to announce what will happen to the county championship events scheduled for 2020. We will need more certainty about the form, capacity and ability for open competition on a level playing field at any events that may be able to proceed. WAA will now focus on monitoring the situation in an attempt to hold county championship races in 2020 while also focusing on preparing a 2021 WRRL. The priority here will be to support those events/organisers that were due to form part of the 2020 league.

I hope this message finds all the athletes in the county safe and well. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me (Simon Nott, WAA Road Running Secretary). I hope you all agree that the above decision is in everybody’s best interests.

WAA OFF-ROAD LEAGUE FINAL RESULTS

By

Due to the COVID-19 rules our Race #6 was cancelled, though LPS Events & the Calne Rotary Club kindly allowed entrants to run 10k whereever they chose, to earn their medal and provided an unofficial table of results.

For reasons of fairness these results cannot be included in the Race League. Applying the rules of the league, the season was ended one race early and the sum of all the other races were totalled to give the final scores.

The Off Road League Club Winners for 2019/2020 are …..

🎉 Chippenham Harriers 🎉

Promotions/Demotions:

Subject to confirmation of the affiliated clubs for 2020, we expect Calne and Frome Running clubs to join the top division, whilst St Mary’s Tri and Royal Wootton Bassett – B will drop to the second tier.

The individual league winners are:

Ladies:🏆 Juliette Hatt – Chippenham Harriers 🏆

Men:🏆 Stuart Temple – Slinn Allstars 🏆

Top scoring in the Male Age Groups are:

  • MSEN: Stuart Temple – Slinn Allstars
  • MV40: Peter Blake – Chippenham Harriers
  • MV50: Simon Rawlins – RWB Hounds
  • MV60+: Frank Lamerton – Avon Valley Runners

Top scoring in the Female Age Groups are:

  • MSEN: Rebekah Carrivick – Avon Valley Runners
  • MV40: Juliette Hatt – Chippenham Harriers
  • MV50: Adele Cooper – Avon Valley Runners
  • MV60+: Julia Cook – Chippenham Harriers

Huge Congratulations to all the winners! Massive Well Dones to everyone who took part!

English Schools AA Track & Field Championships 2020 are CANCELLED

By

From Chris Cohen CBE,English Schools AA (March 28th 2020):

Dear friends,

I am sure you have been anticipating this email for some days now, but I am writing to let you know that ESAA has taken the very difficult decision to cancel the Track & Field Championships this year. We had looked at a variety of possible contingency plans, but, in the end, the fact that this virus doesn’t look as though it will allow schools to open in the near future, that many of our officials may not be able to support us on a third day, and, in fact, some would not be able to take part as they have been told to stay at home for three months, we have been forced to accept defeat and look forward with even more enthusiasm to next year in Manchester.

Thanks to the hard work of Paul Ponton, our treasurer, who has worked with our travel agent, to ensure none of the hotels would charge us an early cancellation fee, we now know that our costs will be minimised, though, sadly, not completely removed.

This also means that the Home International will not take place, but I have offered the SIAB that we would wish to host it next year instead at Derby, assuming we can get the agreement of the local authority, which we would expect would be no problem.

We still hope to stage the Combined Events and Race Walk on the original date in September, but I have asked Iain Presnell and Dick Bowden to look at how we can operate this with no preliminaries or regional rounds. This will, of necessity, require some form of pre-selection, but, if we are still able to stage it, if the crisis is past, then we will keep you updated as to how this would be done within the size of the normally held event.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of such disappointing news, but I’m sure you appreciate that we have done everything we could to try to stage the event, and will look to the future and better times.
Please stay safe and well.

I will update you with our other plans later.

This may free up dates for the county to use for the County Track & Field Championships in July or September as it is important to get athletics up & running when we come out the other side! Stay safe all.

WAA ROAD RACE UPDATE – AVR Westbury 5k

By

**** Race Update from AVR ****

Following advice from UK Athletics that all running events be suspended until the end of May. We have made the decision to cancel the May edition of the AVR Westbury 5K 2020 series. However disappointing I’m sure you’ll agree this is the right decision.

At present we are hopeful that events will be able to resume in June but if not there is still July and August events to come. Once events are able to commence again we will review the situation and if appropriate and possible we will try to reschedule.

For those entered into the May event you can have your entry automatically transferred to the first available event once normal services resume.

Finally I’d like to thank you all for your continued support, stay safe and see you all soon!