Sport is back on.
Well, most of it.
The Government’s decision to lower the Covid-19 Alert Level yesterday will have come as a great relief to the sporting community.
Auckland has dropped from Level 3 to Level 2 and the rest of the country has dropped from Level 2 to Level 1.
At Level 2 there are restrictions on how many people can gather. But at Level 1 sport can resume as normal. That means the national rowing championships at Lake Ruataniwha, which was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, will get under way this morning.
The regatta was scheduled for five days but will be cut to three days. A 60 minute safety briefing will be held prior to the first race at 8am.
The event has attracted about 1000 athletes.
The alert level change will have been warmly received by more than 800 competitors who are expected to line up for Challenge Wanaka on Saturday.
The event would have been cancelled at Level 2.
Highlanders fans can breathe a sigh of relief as well.
The Highlanders’ final pre-season game against the Hurricanes in Alexandra tomorrow night can go ahead with a crowd.
Earlier in the week, the franchise reported about 1600 tickets had been sold for the game.
The Otago Volts are hosting Canterbury in back-to-back one-dayers in Queenstown tomorrow and on Sunday. They can go ahead as scheduled.
Cricket tragics desperate to see Otago’s Katey Martin finally play an international in her home town will get their wish.
The White Ferns arrive in Dunedin next week and will play two one-day internationals against England in the city.
Martin has played more than 160 international games for her country and not one of them has been in Dunedin.
The Black Caps are in the city next week as well. They will play Australia in game two of the five-game T20 series at the University of Otago Oval on February 25.
There have been sporting casualties, though. The Halberg Awards planned for Auckland today were axed earlier in the week, and Canoe New Zealand postponed its pinnacle event.
The canoe sprint national championships scheduled for Lake Karapiro this weekend will not go ahead as planned.
