The International Racquetball Federation (IRF) has announced the 2018 World Championships will be held in San José, Costa Rica, August 10-19. Originally, Worlds were to be held in China, but the local organizing committee encountered difficulties with government approval. That led the IRF to select Cali, Colombia, which hosted the last World Championships in 2016, to host the event again.
However, as the details were being finalized for that the venue unexpected was demolished. The eight courts there were razed to the ground. This was a shocking development, and resulted in the IRF scrambling for another venue with little more than two months until Worlds are to begin.
Thus, San José has become the host.
That solves the immediate issue for the IRF, but the demolition of the courts in Cali will have implications for the Colombian racquetball association, as most of their players were from Cali and we’re not sure there’s another facility in the city. Thus, losing those courts could cripple the racquetball in Cali, specifically, and Colombia, generally.
Colombia has produced world class players, including former Men’s Doubles World Champions Sebastian Franco and Alejandro Herrera, as well as Cristina Amaya, one of the top 10 women on the Ladies Professional Racquetball Tour (LPRT). But to produce more players and continue to train the current ones, they need to have courts.
So while The Racquetball Blog is happy the IRF has a venue for Worlds, we’re concerned about what’s going to happen in Colombia moving forward.
Follow the bouncing ball….
Monday, June 18, 2018
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment