Excitement is mounting as we head towards the first IWRF sanctioned Tournament since the outbreak of the pandemic. Initially postponed from July 2020, the Championships are now scheduled to run from 30 June to 3 July 2021 and what would have been an 8 Team event has been reduced to 6 Nations competing for the 2 promotion slots to Division A. Sadly, Austria and Ireland will not be travelling to Warsaw to compete against the Hosts, Poland plus Finland, Israel, Russia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. It seems a long while ago, when Poland and Switzerland competed in Denmark in 2019 in Division A. Interestingly, Finland currently sit between these two in the World Rankings, with Russia nestling in behind. The Czech Republic and Israel, having been promoted from Division C, will be keen to show their mettle in what promises to be a thrilling Championships.
Covid-19 has without doubt added a huge amount of complexity to the staging of any major sporting event. The Local Organising Committee, hoping just to have to deal with the usual headaches of transport, accommodation and sorting training schedules, now find themselves as the authors of Risk Management and Covid-19 Plans, as the definers of what constitutes an Event Bubble and having to purchase vast amounts of Personal Protective Equipment, Hand Sanitiser and Testing equipment. It’s way more than they signed up for and they need to be congratulated for their dedication and commitment to the cause. Fortunately, they are also the team that has previously been responsible for organising the Metro Cup, so in terms of experience, the event is in very good hands.
International travel is in a state of flux and as a result, finding Officials and Classifiers who are able to fly to Poland and can afford to quarantine, if necessary, on their return home has been a challenge for IWRF. Consequently, this has created opportunities for several home-grown Officials to be part of a Tournament in their own country and in terms of the Classification Panel this will be a team of four, constituting a Type B Panel lead by Chief Classifier, Jacques Erasmus of South Africa, which means that only one athlete can be seen at a time. The Head Official is Katja Grotensohn of Germany, who will organise the six Referees, the two Games Commissioners and the two Evaluators. Head Table Official will be Jana Slavickova of the Czech Republic, who’s role includes the scheduling of the 8 Table Officials, drawn from across Poland and Germany.
With two Teams not able to compete, through no fault of their own, IWRF’s Competition Committee had a really difficult task to sort out how to solve the question of who will be relegated to Division C. After much deliberation and consultation with the Teams, they were able to come up with a very creative resolution to this tricky situation. Chair of the Competition Committee, Kathy Newman said “My colleagues and I realised that we had a real conundrum to deal with and I’m very grateful to them for all of their hard work in arriving at the following solution: With only 2 teams currently in Division C it has been decided that there will be no relegation from these Division B Championships and to combine Divisions B and C for the next round of Championships in 2022. There will be either a 10 Team Tournament or two 5 Team Tournaments held that year and those 10 Teams will be the two Teams relegated from Division A in 2022, the six Teams remaining in Division B and the two Teams currently in Division C. It’s a great outcome and it helps to resolve the issue of trying to find a host for a Division C event with only four Teams”
The event venue will be the Arena Ursynow, the same as the Metro Cup and despite the fact that spectators will not be able to attend, the Local Organising Committee and the Polish Federation have made sure that all of the fifteen matches will be live-streamed, so that viewers around the world, starved of live international Wheelchair Rugby for so long, will be able to enjoy the thrills and spills of the sport, once more. Details of how to watch will be posted on the IWRF and event websites in due course.
First time IWRF Technical Delegate, Simon Starr stated, “The Partnership between the Local Organising Committee and IWRF has been excellent and the Member Nations have been very understanding that we are all working extremely hard to ensure that we can arrange a European Championships in an environment that prioritises the health and safety of our athletes and officials. It’s been a long time in the making and now that we’re almost there, I’m really looking forward to what promises to be a brilliant Tournament and with no recent form to guide us, it truly is wide open.”