Athletics Ireland CEO Hamish Adams is hopeful the European Cross Country Championships can be held in Ireland in 2021 or 2022 after this year's edition which was due to be hosted here was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The championships had been due to take place in December in Dublin but Europe's governing body for the sport said the conditions in Ireland with regard to the virus and travel restrictions across the continent meant the event due to start on 13 December would have to be cancelled.
"The decision to cancel the European Cross Country Athletics Championships was a very tough choice for European Athletics," said interim European Athletics president Dobromir Karamarinov.
"Following the cancellation of the Paris 2020 European Athletics Championship a few months ago, this was the last opportunity for a major European Athletics event this year and cancelling it was not an option we chose lightly."
Italy's Turin is due to stage the 2021 edition of the championships.
.@irishathletics CEO Hamish Adams hopeful that cancelled @EuroAthletics Cross-Country can be held in Ireland in either 2021 or 2022. pic.twitter.com/8nIbXTXyHW
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 9, 2020
But speaking to RTÉ Sport, Adams said that he is hopeful that Ireland will host the championships in 2021 or 2022.
"We hope to see the event here in 2021. If not, 2022. We are working through discussions with European Athletics at the moment," he said.
"The event is due to be hosted in 2021 in Turin in Italy, so we are liaising through European Athletics to negotiate that scenario."
He said that logistical challenges related to pandemic restrictions continent-wide would have made the 2020 championships difficult to organise, adding that 300 volunteers were involved in preparing for this year's event over the last two years.
"We have 51 European countries that potentially could have attended the Spar European Cross Country here in Fingal, Dublin in December and as you can imagine the logistics of bringing 51 athletes from 51 countries across Europe together in one place, it would have been a huge logistical challenge for us so unfortunately the event will not proceed in 2020," he said.
