COVID-19 Situation Update (2021-05-16)

We know you are all wanting to get back to competing, and we really want to get back to hosting competitions too!

The safety of our competitors and their visitors is paramount to the UKCA and we are taking everything into account. The UK Government is hoping to remove all limits on social distancing on June 21st, but both out of regard for the safety of everyone involved, and due to the amount of work we need to do for a competition, we are not planning on holding any competitions until the end of summer. This also allows us the leeway should the Government’s roadmap not go ahead as planned. To get back to competitions in the UK, we’ve been looking at many options, and we’re considering a similar format to a recent common format in China.

China has so many competitors that their competitions fill up in minutes. Adding in social distancing makes it so ridiculous so they have an AM/PM twin competition format for their competitions where they have half their competitors compete in the morning, and the other half in the afternoon. Instead of AM/PM competitions, we are planning on a Saturday/Sunday twin competition format. This would mean that you could choose whether to compete on the Saturday or the Sunday, you will not be able to compete in both. The events would be similar on both days, and to put it simply, there would be two different competitions over the weekend, with two completely different sets of competitors.

For example, imagine a regular 120-person UK competition. 99% of those would be competing in 3x3, so almost all 120 competitors will be in attendance on the Sunday morning, when we usually hold 3x3. In the plan we currently have, we would hold 2, 80-person competitions, which is easier to run, less people in attendance, more accessible to those who may only ever be available on Saturdays for instance, but we would end up with more people available to compete in the end, even though it’s a smaller venue.

Going forward, we will review this format of competition and will be open to continuing the format in the future, and potentially including 1-day competitions also. We will of course also continue regular 2-day competitions also as we know there are lots of you that love them! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you are interested in organising a competition and have a venue in mind, let us know!