Two Years In a Row
The world’s oldest sanctioned race, Isle Of Man TT, has been canceled for 2021 due to pandemic complications regarding COVID 19. The last time the event was canceled was back in 2001 after the UK caught a bad case of Hand Foot and Mouth disease. This is the first time since World War 2 that the race has been canceled for multiple years in succession.
Isle Of Man (the island itself) has imposed some pretty strict laws regarding outsiders visiting the island in hopes to keep it shielded from outside viral sources, so the cancellation of this huge event comes as no surprise.
Covid managed to cancel the 2020 race, and shortly after the cancellation, they announced the 2021 dates in hopes that the pandemic would have cleared up by then. Unfortunately, the second wave is upon us and we should look to see many more events/races being canceled in the near future.
The Island explored options in moving the date further ahead, but they concluded it simply wouldn’t be possible to gather the proper infrastructure to accommodate a large surge in tourist visitors over the long event.
Laurence Skelly, minister of the Department for Enterprise for the Isle of Man Government said in his release: “We do not underestimate the disappointment that this decision will cause to many people. However, we are making an early and logical decision to provide certainty and clarity to race fans and everyone else involved in our event. The TT relies on thousands of volunteers and officials across a wide range of organizations and we could not move responsibly towards operating to that date and commit to welcoming tens of thousands of people to the Island in June, despite the progress towards a vaccination program globally and on the Island,”
“We evaluated all possible options including moving the TT to a date later in the year but there are complexities and risks, including scaling up of certain infrastructure and critical delivery elements of the TT, as well as existing resident and visitor travel in late August, which would cause further disruption to thousands of people,” he continued.
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