Easter double-header is on the cards for racing return
ADAPTED Easter runs and a springtime 10-miler will head the return to live racing – provided Guernsey’s lockdown exit doesn’t slip off pace.
Guernsey Athletics organising committee member Chris Gillman is ‘cautiously optimistic’ of the club staging 5km and 10km road races to replace the popular Easter Festival, which last year fell to Covid restrictions.
But any live competition depends on reaching stage three of the exit from lockdown.
Otherwise, organisers will provide a virtual event rather than make compromises such as wave starts.
‘Easter is a key time in the running calendar and I think everyone is keen to do some form of racing, so the club will be looking to schedule something over the holiday weekend,’ Gillman said.
‘It’s fair to say that the format will need to change, though.
‘Clearly health and safety come first and we’ll need to ensure that we’re fully compliant with States guidelines.
‘Hopefully mass-participation events are an option by then but, if not, we always have virtual races as a fall-back option.’
A virtual Easter Festival would draw upon the success of a recent solo time-trial series, which welcomed 101 performance submissions across three disciplines despite being restricted to club members only.
But this is still a big step down from the regular triple-figure turnouts of recent road races.
Surprisingly, only two calendar events have so far fallen foul of lockdown 2.0, with the Imperial 10-miler following the trail of an earlier Pembroke to North Beach 10km road race.
Gillman hopes that the 10-miler can be run in late April and, overall, he expects a somewhat different race calendar.
‘We can be relatively flexible and react fairly quickly, but we’ll need to work with organisers from other sports because I’m sure they will have similar ideas – and we’d like to avoid venue or time clashes,’ he added.
‘The 10-miler is a popular event and I think people would still be keen to slot that in.
‘Ideally we’d like to avoid that being too late into the summer when it gets too warm, but we obviously have Liberation Day to plan for too.
‘Whatever happens though, I’m confident there will be some good racing to be had this year.’
