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The Trans Baviaans event which was due to take place on 15 August 2020 will be postponed to January 2021. The race organisers have taken a big step and will host the race twice in 2021. The postponed event will run from 23 - 30 January and the 2021 event will take place in August 2021. Here is the official statement from race founder, Wikus van der Walt.
Dear fellow Trans Baviaansers, We have reached the time to make a decision on the Trans Baviaans 2020. Just as many of you, we at EcoBound are also facing hard, challenging, and uncertain times ahead trying to deal with this Covid-19 lockdown and its effects. Although many, or most, businesses will be open under level 3 (from 1 June 2020), is there no indication when mass participation events and functions will be able to continue nor what the conditions will be. With the dates for Trans Baviaans just over 2 months away, it might be a touch and go situation for August. We’ve had numerous meetings and discussions with affected parties, trying to take in all the known and unknown factors to determine our way forward. We strongly believe our solution is the one that benefits our riders the most. Please see below factors we had to consider in our decision making process:
The Event takes place in the poorest Province in South Africa. These are remote and fragile communities - there are limited medical establishments available. Sending a crowd of people through these areas can potentially put them all at a higher risk during this time. It will be devastating if these communities experienced a increase in Covid-19 cases due to the event taking place
Cross Provincial Travel restrictions - This might potentially ease during lockdown level 2 but the status of ‘Hotspots’ can fluctuate and prevent traveling between provinces any time during lockdown.
Too many pending outcomes - CSA is meeting with the Sports Ministry in this week to discuss possible solutions for future events but, there is no clarity on what the Sports Minister will decide.
Level 3 regulations and restrictions are also changing on a daily basis.
Things are changing rapidly, locally and internationally regarding lockdown regulations, treatments, and possible cures.
Mass participation events will only be allowed to take place under lockdown level 0 and we are unsure how long we will be in the various levels nor when this will happen.
Uncertainty of when supporting businesses can operate normally, like Accommodation establishments, Restaurants etc. that has an impact on our event
Rider training consideration - we want to give our riders fair time to prepare for the event. Lockdown restrictions have made this challenging and we understand this.
We considered the input of our Sponsors, vendors , communities, etc. who supports our decision.
Thus, taking the above main reasons into consideration, and adopting a risk-averse approach we have decided to postpone the Trans Baviaans 2020 to 23 and 30 January 2021.
This means that the scheduled 2021 event will still take place in August 2021, with the result of two events taking place in 2021.
We sincerely hope that you will understand this is not a decision we wanted to make, but we are forced to comply with the restrictions regulated by our Government.
Please reach out to your accommodation establishment to discuss changing the dates.
For event refunds please see our website for revised Covid-19 cancellation policy.
We sincerely hope you trust our decision, Keep training, keep safe, and we look forward to see you in January 2021!! Kind Regards Wikus van der Walt Race Founder