2021 Australian Short Course Swimming Championships cancelled due to Melbourne’s lockdown

Swimming Australia has today confirmed the cancellation of the 2021 Australian Short Course Swimming Championships, that were due to be held at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre from 23rd to 26th September.

Swimming Australia advise that “with the competition scheduled to take place in less than six weeks, the ongoing effects of COVID in many states and the uncertainty regarding border closures throughout the country, resulted in the difficult decision to cancel the event.”

Advising that this is a disappointing outcome but the right one considering current circumstances,

Swimming Australia Chief Executive, Alex Baumann commented “this is an unfortunate situation and again a decision we did not take lightly, but we needed to provide our swimming community with some certainty and with the borders being so unstable and regular lockdowns still occurring we feel this is the right decision.

“We would like to thank the Victorian Government and Melbourne Sports Centres – MSAC for their understanding and support during this time.”

In addition, due to the updated Federal Government policies on international travel restrictions and subsequent mandatory quarantine requirements, this has impacted Swimming Australia’s participation at the 2021 FINA World Short Course in Abu Dhabi (set to run from 15th to 20th December 2021).

Swimming Australia will facilitate entries to World Short Course (WSC) under a revised WSC selection criteria for targeted athletes but will not be sending an official Australian team to the event.

Baumann said the current international travel restrictions in place made it very difficult to support sending a team to Abu Dhabi, adding “with limited options to return to Australia, the quarantine requirements following competition falling over the Christmas and New Year period and many of our athletes just undertaken more than 10 weeks away from home, we felt sending a team to the event was not viable.

“For those athletes that still wish to attend and meet the selection criteria, we will provide a level of support to assist in travel and accommodation for the meet.”

Eligibility criteria will be based on those swimmers who have reached a FINA A standard (Long or Short Course) within the time period from 1st March 2019 to 28th November 2021 at an international competition or Swimming Australia FINA approved competition (Australian Swimming Trials/Australian Swimming Championships).

Swimming Australia will work with coaches and athletes to gauge interest on participation at WSC over the following weeks, with a maximum of 20 athletes nominated for entry.