It’s the bad news we have all been waiting for: The international circuit of Skyrunning will not take place in 2020 due to the consequences of the sanitary crisis that has hit the world.
Fans and athletes around the world will have to wait another year for the highly-anticipated race circuit as the Skyrunner® World Series announces there will be no circuit until next year. The international series, which would have seen over 184 of the world’s top athletes compete in 12 countries around the world in 2020, has been cancelled.
In the light of COVID-19, many races of the series have been cancelled or postponed until the end of August. For this reason, SkyMan SA – the management team behind the Skyrunner®World Series – has no choice but to cancel the 2020 edition of the series.
This does not mean all races in the circuit will not go ahead. Some events will still take place this fall, but unfortunately, not as part of the series.
“The current circumstances, i.e. cancellations and international travel limitations, created an unsuitable environment for an international series to happen. A single race can possibly still successfully take place, but concentrating a whole season in only a few weeks would not be respectful to the athletes and the organizers alike’, says Albert Jorquera, SkyMan SA representative, ‘So, in agreement with ISF, we decided to simply forget 2020 in order to focus on 2021 and delivering the kind of series the community expects and deserves”.
Such a decision obviously has collateral effects on the 52-week ranking which normally takes into account the results of the last 52 weeks. It has therefore been decided to freeze that ranking for 2020 and, so, the 2019 results will be computed when resuming the operations in 2021.
Also, the Skyrunner® Virtual Series that was imagined to fill the gap and gathered thousands of participants from over 80 countries in the past weeks will stop after the Minotaur Skyrace on June 27th.
Although this news will certainly come as a disappointment for many, especially in what has been a challenging time, globally, the Skyrunner® World Series team is focused and looking forward to getting ready to prepare for 2021, in the hope of delivering an exceptional race circuit yet again.
The Skyrunner® World Series website will continue to update the calendar of individual races that will still take place until the end of the season. Hopefully, many of these incredible races can still successfully go ahead.
