Yesterday, European Athletics confirmed the cancellation of the 2020 edition of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships that was due to take place in Dublin, Ireland, on 13 December.
Next year’s event has already been set to take place in Italy's Turin but Hamish Adams, former Rowing Ireland CEO and current Athletics Ireland CEO, is hopeful that Ireland can hold the European Cross Country Championships in either 2021 or 2022.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, Adams stated that he is optimistic that Ireland can host the championships in 2021 or 2022.
.@irishathletics CEO Hamish Adams hopeful that cancelled @EuroAthletics Cross-Country can be held in Ireland in either 2021 or 2022. pic.twitter.com/8nIbXTXyHW
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 9, 2020
"We hope to see the event here in 2021. If not, 2022. We are working through discussions with European Athletics at the moment," he said.
"The event is due to be hosted in 2021 in Turin in Italy, so we are liaising through European Athletics to negotiate that scenario."
"We have 51 European countries that potentially could have attended the Spar European Cross Country here in Fingal, Dublin in December and as you can imagine the logistics of bringing 51 athletes from 51 countries across Europe together in one place, it would have been a huge logistical challenge for us so unfortunately the event will not proceed in 2020," he said.
Last year’s racing in Lisbon saw the Irish do exceptionally well and they were targeting an even better performance on home soil in Dublin 2020.
Naturally, the athletes will be gutted to see the event cancelled due to the effects of the pandemic.. Track stars such as Ciara Mageean, Nadia Power and Amy O’Donoghue had all been looking forward to the event and have been in great form recently.
Mageean has claimed two new Irish records in past week, Power broke the U23 800m record in Italy and O’Donoghue claimed the 1500m National Title in August 2020.
