Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) has been forced to move this month's national age group short course championships to Wellington, following the earthquakes in Canterbury.
The championships, expected to attract up to 1000 swimmers, coaches, officials and supporters, was scheduled for QEII Leisure Centre in Christchurch from September 26-30.
With the complex still closed after the earthquakes and damage reported to the main building that houses the swimming pool, SNZ had to re-evaluate the event.
They considered cancelling or postponing the championships, and moving to another venue before deciding to relocate the championships to Wellington on the same dates.
"We would have liked to have kept it in Christchurch to help bring revenue into the city following the earthquake," SNZ event manager Kent Stead said.
"We consulted widely including with Swimming Canterbury who supported our decision to move the event from QEII. It's been a frantic week and now we have a very busy couple of weeks to get everything in place."
