Atlantic Canada’s largest annual multi-sport tournament will not be going ahead as planned this year.
Organizers of the East Coast Games in Saint John have cancelled June’s event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Co-chair Keith Raynes says it was not an easy decision to make, but it was the right one.
“We felt very confident from a safety and health level that this was the best decision to make because we want to run a quality event, we don’t want to have four or five sports and 700 athletes that may be able to attend,” said Raynes.
Raynes said it would be hard to put on an event of this size while following the social distancing guidelines from health officials.
The 2020 edition was expected to attract more than 2,500 athletes and their families to the Saint John region.
Raynes said the cancellation will be a big loss for the city’s sports tourism.
“Having 2,500 athletes coming into town, that’s just athletes, that’s not mom and dad and supporters, so you could be at 4,000 or 5,000 really easily coming into the community for two or three days,” he said.
Raynes said their focus now is on making next year’s games bigger and better than ever.
“I think there was a few sports that wanted in this year that just, due to their calendar and events that they had going on, they couldn’t commit, so we might be able to get them in for next year,” he said.
Amid the ever-changing landscape of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we have decided to reevaluate the East Coast Games in June. At this time, given the circumstances, we have made the decision to cancel the 2020 East Coast Games in Saint John. Visit our website for the full release. pic.twitter.com/xDtnmznX3u
— East Coast Games (@eastcoastgamesj) March 24, 2020
