Another major European tournament cancelled.
March 11, 2020 by Ravi Vasudevan in Livewire, News with 0 comments
The Bologna Invite has been added to the list of major tournaments that have been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. The tournament was scheduled for April 4-5 in Bologna, Italy. The tournament was to feature 18 of Europe’s top national teams in the open and women’s divisions in preparation for WUGC later this year.
The organizers of Bologna Invite prepared this statement:
We are writing to update you about the Covid-19 and Bologna Invite situation.
The Italian Government released a new decree, which extends strict containment measures to all Italy.
The new provision extends the closure of Schools and Universities, gyms and sports facilities until April 3rd and forbids the movements through Italy, if not urgently necessary.
Considering these provisions we are aware of the difficulties of travelling through Europe at this moment, that’s why we have decided to suspend Bologna Invite 2020, in agreement with CUSB Direction.
Although the suspension doesn’t depend on our willing, but it is determined by the Government and Health Authorities indications, the entire amount of the deposit will be refunded to you. We don’t want to charge your team with additional costs, considering flights cancellations and the urgent rescheduling of the international ultimate calendar. We strongly believe in our community’s spirit of trust and cooperation, also during hard times as this one. Thus, during these days we tried to take into account different exigences and meet your needs.
This decision was, in part, due to the same decree that caused Paganello to cancel their edition this year. Italy then began a quarantine of the most impacted regions. The initial regions did not include Bologna, but Italy has since extended their emergency measures nationwide.
Giovanni Santucci, a player on CUSB La Fotta and Italy Open, who was part of the event organization said, “We were planning a lot for this edition. As the problems here got worse, we saw that we could not provide what we were promising. Shops are closing and teams were dropping out on their own, so we realized that this event just couldn’t happen.”
The effects of the virus are having a great impact on the European ultimate calendar. France has cancelled the first weekend of their national mixed championship. Tom’s Tourney has released a statement that they are not yet planning to cancel their tournament, but will follow any guidelines put forth by the Belgian government.
