Athletics Ireland has confirmed the staging of the 2020 National Track and Field Championships over two successive weekends, and nine separate sessions, at the Morton Stadium in Santry later this month as a way of dealing with the extended Covid-19 restrictions on outdoor gatherings – thus maintaining their 147 unbroken years of history.
The final competition timetable for the 148th staging of the event was released by Athletics Ireland on Tuesday, with the first weekend sessions, five in all, taking place on Saturday August 22nd and Sunday 23rd, followed by another two days of two sessions each on Saturday August 29th and Sunday August 30th.
As already announced, any athlete travelling from overseas to compete will be required to have 14 days of self-isolation prior to their event, with proof of travel details. It was also confirmed that residents of the three counties currently in lockdown – Kildare, Laois and Offaly – cannot travel to the event as either athletes or officials; however, if they are members from clubs within the county, though not currently resident there, they are permitted to travel.
However given the strict limit of 200 per session, there will be no coaches, spectators or media allowed at any of the sessions, all of which will be streamed live on the Athletics Ireland streaming channel. There won’t be any medal ceremonies either, as athletes will be required to leave the stadium as soon as their event is complete. RTÉ is also set to broadcast one of the sessions live, yet to be confirmed.
Originally set for the last weekend in June, the championships were first postponed because of Covid-19 and re-fixed the weekend of August 22nd/23rd, but entirely subject to the moving to Phase 4, and the increase in permitted numbers from 200 to 500 for outdoor gatherings.
When the Government decided against that move last week, Athletics Ireland had to look for another solution, bringing forward the closing date for entries to midnight last Sunday night: with total entry numbers of 727, a meeting of the competition committee on Monday evening decided it would be possible to stage all events over the four days, on two successive weekends, a sort of compromise and solution rolled into one.
The opening day, August 22nd, will have three separate sessions, before nine finals at the second session on the Sunday; the concluding session on Sunday August 30th will also have eight finals in all.
With that timetable now confirmed Athletics Ireland will continue the longest unbroken run of any athletics championships anywhere in the world: the Government limit will next be reviewed in three weeks, beginning from this Monday, August 10th, which means it would have been August 31st before any potential increase, or the first weekend in September before that applies in the wider sporting context.
First staged on Monday, July 7th 1873, ironically postponed by two days because of bad weather, the national track and field championships have been moved around to a few different venues in the 147 years since, before settling at the Morton Stadium in Santry, but remain unbroken, even by two World Wars.
It had been suggested that if the Morton Stadium was not capable of hosting the championships they might be broken up and taken to the provinces, although that option wasn’t considered necessary at this stage.
With a number of Irish athletes showing good form since emerging from the lockdown, including Ciara Mageean running a first ever sub-two minute 800 metres by any Irish woman, it gives some further incentive to a season already decimated by the postponing of the Tokyo Olympics.
