Decisions about school winter sport up in the air

SCHOOL sport is in a holding pattern.

As schools open to a limited number of pupils, secondary school sport appears a long way away from coming back, although the winter tournament week has not yet been canned.

The board of School Sport NZ announced last week the national calendar of sanctioned events would be further suspended until July

20, the beginning of term three.

A decision on whether the winter tournament week will go ahead will be made at the start of June.

Some sports, though, have not waited that long, and New Zealand Football has announced it has cancelled all school tournaments for the season.

School sport would only get back in full swing when Alert Level 1 is reached, as physical contact is not allowed at Level 2. Much of school winter sport had been expected to start this weekend before the Covid19 pandemic struck.

If the tournament week does go ahead, it will look considerably different than usual.

It is set for the end of August and is usually a highlight of the year for many pupils.

The tournament weeks involve heightened risk, with pupils travelling around the country and living in close proximity to each other. National events also come with greater costs to families, to schools and to event organisers.

Other issues around a winter tournament week include finding time to run qualifying tournaments, tooshort leadin times, a possible changing of term times and interrupting local competitions.

Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association regional sports director Nicki Paterson said it would be disappointing if the winter tournament week was lost, but understandable.

It would be hard to expect parents and supporters to fund trips away in such times.

She said big tournaments involved hundreds of players, so contact tracing would be difficult.

Many pupils have been disappointed with sport not starting and it was very tough for the pupils in their final year at school.

She said many events also relied on gaming trust money and that was expected to dry up.

It may be that sports were limited to being played within a region in a shorter competition.

PHOTO: PETER MCINTOSH Will it be seen again? . . . Leo Staufenberg, of Mount Aspiring Colelge, leads the start of a race at the Otago Secondary Schools crosscountry event at Kaikorai Valley College in May last year.