Teams and supporters gathering at Taupō's Owen Delany Park for the Global Games Junior Rugby Festival. Photo / Supplied
Teams and supporters gathering at Taupō's Owen Delany Park for the Global Games Junior Rugby Festival. Photo / Supplied
The Taupō district has been dealt another blow with the cancellation of this year's Global Games New Zealand Junior Rugby Festival tournament due to Covid-19.
This comes hard on the heels of the postponement last week of the 2022 Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Taupō.
The annual festival, one ofthe biggest junior rugby events in the world, involves more than 200 teams and was scheduled to be held in Taupō, Queenstown and Christchurch in September and October. It's the second year in a row the competition has been cancelled due to the pandemic.
Event director Tyrone Campbell says it's a devastating blow, especially for the thousands of junior players who will miss out on touring with their teammates.
"We know how much these kids were looking forward to representing their clubs and communities.
"The huge commitment and sacrifices made by so many, to make a festival of this scale possible."
He said hard-working volunteer coaches, managers and whānau members put in a massive effort to give young players the opportunity to play at the tournament.
"For nothing more than love. So we feel for everybody impacted."
Tyrone says the hardest part was telling his son, whose attendances at the festival began before he could walk.
"Cooper was due to play in Taupō for the first time with his under-9s East Coast Bays team in what would have been a really proud moment for our family.
"We are hurting with all the children who have missed out, but we're focusing on the positives. We enjoyed most of the winter sports season without interruption."
Action at the Global Games Junior Rugby Festival in Taupō. Photo / Global Games
Messages of support have been received from participating teams all around New Zealand and from overseas.
"It's important we continue to invest in our greatest asset, our young people. So we will be back stronger and better than ever in 2022."
Taupō District kaiwhakahaere papa ngahau/events and venues manager Steve Giles said from both a player's and host's viewpoint, the district shared the disappointment about this year's festival being cancelled.
"We have worked alongside Tyrone and his team to exhaust all possibilities of postponement."
He said factors were the continued uncertainty around the pandemic, schedules of the organiser's other events, venue and accommodation availability and the fact the event could only occur under alert level 1.
Other high-profile tournaments have also been cancelled since the country went into alert level 4 lockdown in August. School Sport NZ were due to have their winter tournament this week and the annual AIMS Games cancelled their youth events.
Steve said he was looking forward to being able to work with the Global Games team in planning the 2022 event and once again welcome back to Taupō more than 100 junior rugby teams from across the country.
Taupō has had 29 events scheduled through until mid-September postponed and/or cancelled due to the current Covid-19 Delta variant outbreak. The economic loss to the district adds up to just under $2 million.
Steve said the Taupō District Council would continue to work closely with event partners to support them in any way.
