EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIP 2021 WILL NOT TAKE PLACE

The European Universities Cycling Championship 2021, planned from 8-13 June in Nijmegen, will not take place, due to developments regarding the coronavirus. The organising committee of the European Championship for students has been working hard over the past months, weighing all options to make the event happen. Today, together with EUSA, we have unfortunately come to the conclusion that also our last scenario is not feasible, due to the measures against the coronavirus.

 

After three years of preparations - initially working towards the FISU World University Cycling Championship in 2020 - all the efforts of the organising foundation now come to an end. The disappointment after last year’s cancelled FISU WUC Cycling was huge, but I am incredibly proud of the way in which our young organising committee has energetically turned that disappointment around into a hopeful and positive plan to organise the first ever EUC Cycling in 2021, under the flag of EUSA. The main goal was always to organise a quality and safe event for all participants, staff, volunteers and other people involved. 

Unfortunately, this proved not to be feasible in these difficult times.

 

Different options explored

As an organising committee, we did not take any chances in deciding not to organise the event. We could have thrown in the towel a few months ago, knowing that it would be very difficult to organise the event this year, but we did not. Until yesterday we looked at every possible option to still achieve our goal. Corona-bubbles, no audience, moving to the fall, to later in the summer, and even at an alternative, hermetically lockable location; everything was negotiable, but all options ultimately proved unfeasible for various reasons.

One of those reasons is also the availability of our main organising committee itself. We are a group of young, driven people, who all do this next to a study or regular job and often partly set these aside. So you can’t keep putting off the event indefinitely if work and study eventually demand full attention again.

 

Valuable experiences

Nevertheless, as an organising committee we look back on the past years of preparations with great satisfaction. Our efforts may not have resulted in the wonderful championship that we so desperately wanted, but we have all gained enormously valuable experience that will continue to benefit us for the rest of our careers. We thank EUSA and all our stakeholders who have supported us over the years for their contributions.

 

Refund of payment

Due to the cancellation of the EUC Cycling 2021, we are inviting all NUSA and University teams to provide us with the information needed for the refund of the fees that were paid for the event. We kindly ask contact persons to send duly completed EUSA Refund Request Form to EUSA Registrations - registrations@eusa.eu latest by June 1, 2021.

 

Stay healthy and keep moving!

On behalf of the organising committee of the European Universities Cycling Championship 2021,

 

Joost van Wijngaarden

President of the organising committee