As the world slowly starts picking itself up from where they left off in the beginning of the year, a lot has changed. New rules and regulations for minimal contact, distancing, sanitizing and more are now seen as normal, and will probably be so for the remainder of the year. If not more.
How does this affect sport and the concept of traveling for tournaments?
Risky Points
First,the disease and risk of infection are still there. It will not go away overnight once the lockdown is over.
The AAI (Airports Authority) published a laundry list of new measures that will make anyone look at flying as an ordeal. It’s not just the wait times, the app based pseudo protection or the possibility that your flight neighbour may cough. Nope, its everything else that comes before and after you land.
While traveling you are dependent on taxi cab drivers, hotel staff, cooks, room attendants, shop keepers etc…for the duration of your stay. That’s a lot of people to go through, just to play a tournament. With minimum contact the call of the day, this is next to impossible outside the comforts of your own home city.
Tournaments in the same city, district or state where road travel is possible are probably better choices.
In my own thoughts, I suggest the association to simply abandon and suspend points for the remainder of the year. This way any chance of infection because of travel is basically eliminated.
Stay Local, Compete Local
Which is why ITL would like to promote the concept of Stay Local, Compete Local.
Let’s not let the word “local” dissuade us from thinking this is something lowly, or not worth our while. Our collective should be more focused towards game development, player development and the pursuit of self growth instead of numbers on a PDF file. It’s time our mindsets take a leap and see the bigger picture. If we don’t now, then I’m afraid we never will.
Covid-19 has taught us that the chances to become better can be snatched away from you literally overnight.
Playing in local events has always been the stepping stone of any great athlete.
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ITL Tournaments?
As of now, we don’t have a set date when we expect our tournaments to start up again. We’ll give you some time to train first 🙂