It sounds like a lot of Europeans/North Americans have trouble grasping how hard it is to travel from and back to Australia/NZ these days. You already feel kind of insulated most of the time, but at the moment it's magnitudes worse.

Yes with a minimum 2 weeks for travel exemptions to even be looked at and If granted then trying to get the flights it's certainly a nightmare. Out of interest put into sky scanner flights back to Aus.. 1 way cheapest, best, shortest (basically only) was $16002 and 58 hours 35 mins travel time needing an overnight hotel stop to pay for too. Remember this was only one way.. No one was going to book that incase Hamburg went ahead, not when there were no points up for grabs. The travel costs were more than the prize money for the win. It was too late for them to try for travel exemptions once it changed.

You guys are good swimmers figure it out. Haha jk. But really I’ll vouch for the US. I’d be impressed if a majority could point to NZ and Aus on a map.

The Hamburg race was the only sure thing this year.
So if an athlete had any intention to race against the best in the world, she/he had to have Hamburg on the race calendar.
And trained for that race as a big goal.

So you are worried about the athletes who had no plans racing against the best this year. But when the race change to a world championship they suddenly wanted to race??
Why would they race if they are not prepared?

I am so happy we get a world class race in 2020.

Hey from what I have read, Australians can enter Germany the exact same way as Canadians TOMORROW. And from what I gather, Emirates is flying TODAY Sydney-Dubai-Frankfurt. So you really can't say you're more isolated.

https://www.emirates.com/...y&connection=dxb

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I really wish you people would stop pretending you know what the travel restrictions out of Australia are and just how hard it is to get back.
https://www.news.com.au/...5856435417681ff5c032

"Airlines warn flying back 100,000 stranded Australians will take six months unless travel caps eased
Airlines say they have been forced to prioritise customers who pay more for tickets, with one flight carrying as few as four economy passenger "
https://www.theguardian.com/...ss-travel-caps-eased

the itu president spoke about contract obligation, i would assume that means no world champ race , less sponsorship money for the itu. and i assume when the original world champ location was cancelled they transferd it to hamburg. i guess you can complain about it , but at the end money makes the world go round is the most likely case and since hamburg was already the team worlds i cant see why it is completely wrong also holding the single worlds there.

it sucks for the countries that cant go there , but its not the first time in sport moscow and LA come to mind.

Honestly, I think it’s a bigger problem that they arrange the worlds rather than the notice. Slowly But surely travel restrictions even between European countries are being reinstated. I guess, that unless you can prove you’re a Pro, many aren’t even allowed into the EU, that’s one thing, But not potentially a Big problem, But generally gathering people from all over the World to race to risk spreading the corona virus even more is a bad idea.
You could say the same for all sports, But most Pro cyclists live and train in Europe and they could just isolate themselves for a few weeks in a hotel and drive home

Nick, its not about the travel restrictions OUT of any country. You can't organize anything based on the restrictions every country around the world puts on its citizens. You can just organize based on who is allowed in. Germany is allowing Aussies in, its just that Aussies are making it hard on themselves to get out.

Nothing in the world that involves some international cross border collaboration can start back up if we have to hold back the rest of the world because of the limitations set by specific govts on their own citizens. Now we can debate if anything international should start back up, but that's a different challenge.

Hey Caleb Ewan just won the TdF stage in Sisteron, so that's one example of an Aussie who is over in Europe doing international sport but in fairness he did have more notice.

To be fair to Montreal, that LOC was working their ass off to make the event happen. The province of Quebec has been running races for a few weeks already, with adaptions for COVID related guidelines, but still successful events. Ultimately the cancellation of the event only came due to the extension of the international travel ban (to Sept 30, meaning even if the ban is lifted Oct 1, athletes wouldn't be able to arrive 2 weeks ahead to fulfill quarantine requirements, prior to racing).

That said, Canadians can leave and could get to europe to race, the issue would be coming back (limited flights would be expensive, and then a 2 week quarantine upon arrival, with $500k fines if you violate)... I am not sure whether if an athlete actually wanted to go, Tri Can would support them or not in terms of entry.

that said, it's not a shocker that with there only being 3 WTS races listed for the last few months and then Montreal and Bermuda cancelling, that they mad Hamburg a one and done. The biggest obstacle with the short notice is for those who have to travel the furthest to get there, and comply with all of the COVID related restrictions. Given that prize money is relatively limited, for the Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians, looking at the probably of earning a decent payday vs. the expense of going over for the race, it probably wasn't worth it, especially with no Olympic points on offer. I assume most of the americans who made the strip are sticking around in Europe to race a couple of the World Cups that are going ahead to at least get their money's worth out of the trip (even those are listing stacked fields because people are desperate to race).

Also, i am not sure about the people saying it should have been anticipated. Hamburg is logical, because it was going to be MTR worlds anyways, but a month back it got dicey as to whether Hamburg was even going to happen, in order to pull it off, they had to cancel the AG races and go Elite only and move to a venue where they could control spectator traffic.It was touch and go for a bit before they got things sorted.

It sucks for the athletes who can't make it, but those who could can only race against those who show up. Save for a few Canadians and Aussies, most of the top15 in last year's world rankings are on the start list...

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Dev,you must know very well that all of the Pro Tour level cyclists from Australia are based in Europe for the duration of the northern season every year.There are only two Aussies in the TdF this year and none on the Australian Michelton-Scott Team but all the others are in Europe as normal preparing for other events including the next two Grand Tours.

Wouldn't be allowed on that plane without a travel exemption approval which takes a minimum of 2 weeks to obtain, if it is judged you meet the tough criteria.
Aus is a big place, depending on where you live, you may need to travel to another state to get that flight, we have some states with boarder restrictions too meaning is also difficult to travel within our own country. Even so getting out is the easy part.
Then there is the getting home.. as I stated in an earlier post that is even harder. With many 1000s of expat Aussies still trying to get home the minimal flights are heavily booked. Out of interest I did a search on what it would take for the Aus athlete I thought most likely to have been there, Birtwhistle the defending Hamburg champ. Lives on an island state with no international airport so took some work to figure out. But all sky scanner could find for the days after Hamburg race is 1 flight a day at a cost of $16002 aus $19182 US. Due to minimal flights in stopover places also it stated 58 hours and 35 mins travel time. But as I know the Aus rules it would be a fortnight longer because he would have to spend 14 days hotel quarantine where the international flight touches down, at own expense before he can fly to his home state. I believe that as he had left the airport and is flying from a "hotspot city" he may actually need to hotel quarantine again on his arrival. This is as long as he is granted a g2g pass to re enter his own state. 30 days and 10hrs after leaving Frankfurt he potentially lands home.
So please, tell me again how easy it is to leave Australia.

You are aware that the athletes don't pay for their travel? You think the US athletes paid to jump through all of the hoops and to travel there? Why does he have to immediately fly home after the race? He is part of Joel's crew so he is used to not being home almost the entire year anyway. You now are just grasping at straws here making nonsensical strawman arguments. Again, blame your national federation for not supporting its athletes -- not ITU for actually hosting a WC. USAT made it work and it's not like europe embraces anyone flying in from USA right now.

btw, traveling to Hamburg to race the WC meets 3 of the 6 criteria to leave australia: urgent and unavoidable personal business, compassionate or humanitarian grounds, and travel in the national interest.

you are in the very small minority of people who thinks that ITU should not be hosting a WC this weekend because a few athletes chose not to go there.

Actually I was giving this information to show why Aus wouldn't have been rushing to enter a race with no Olympic points and no wts points. Once it changed, with the short notice given, it would been too late for them to obtain approval to leave.
I believe NZ is similar. Ok, not ITU fault all the other races had to be cancelled with short notice, i get that, we go in and out of lockdown here with short notice too, things are forever changing.
I might be the only one on here bothering to still be voicing my opinion, but look at the number of athletes on social media, not including those missing out, who are saying it's not right to call it a world championship. Many other titles could be used, if they can see the issue, when it could be their title, you just choose not to.
On a semi side note, I don't think the Joel Filliol group are actually together at the moment.
Anyway, now let's hope all arrive healthy and ITU covid plan is successful and all leave still healthy.

The main point is that the ITU or any sport federation can't specifically care about the athletes from Fiji, or Bostwana, or Australia, or Canada or Estonia or any SPECIFIC country.....they just have to put on an event where they can, and then its up to the athletes from different nations to show up. Some athletes may not even be able to enter the host country because where they are from.

For example in normal times its almost impossible for an Iranian athlete to travel to and race in the USA. Every year there are athletes who cannot travel from their country to a world championship destination country just because where they are from for VISA reasons. Its an imperfect world out there. ITU is doing the best with what we have. If its inconvenient for Aussies, or Kiwis or Canadians, its just one year. We can count our blessings for being from where we are. Most of the time we can get into any country at any time with an easy Visa application and compete anywhere we want. That is not today, but its really temporary this year. For many friends around the world, they are not blessed with the same access to rest of the world. So if its tough for us now. But its a short duration toughness, not life long.

I wouldn’t be so sure at this point, that 2021 season won’t be affected.
Aside from Russia and what the orange American man is telling us, most experts dont Think a vaccine will be widely available this year

Yeah, you are probably right. We are all likely looking at playing relatively local not just in triathlon but across the board in biz and leisure. It is hard to believe vaccine that is guaranteed to have no long term effects manages to get to market and deployed in such a short period. Although I am hopeful, it will be interesting to see what really rolls out in what time frame.

The olympic games should be an interesting test. You would assume that they will try to run that with athletes only, no fans, so the question is how do 5000 athletes and support get in and out of Japan for an international competition, and how do some sports even have a lead up to the Olympics given some sports have qualifying series for countries to have slots/berths in the actual Olympic competition.

Anyway glad we are having a Tour de France for now, and ITU is having a one off World's in a rather stunted capacity, but its live racing, so let's just take it an enjoy.

I'd be reluctant to state that they don't care, because the access is uneven to the event, they are not awarding olympic qualification points at the race, which is at least one thing. That said, it's crappy that not every country can access worlds (For Canada, a big factor is actually an insurance thing, the ITU rules states that the NF's must guarantee that they have insurance in case anything happens with participating athletes, Tri Can's insurer is currently not covering people who travel right now... this is one of the reasons Tri Can has stated that they wouldn't be supporting athletes even if they could make their way to Hamburg), but there are access issues for certain countries in any given year, so I understand holding it.

I understand why it was short notice, because of the cancellations of the other two WTS events, but the short notice was a bit of an issue, because it didn't give the federations time to try and sort out ways to get athletes there (either by exploring other insurers, or getting exit permits, etc.).

Hopefully there's a more normal calendar in 2021, but we'll see how the situation unfolds in the coming months. I am less vaccine skeptical than a few of the others, because I have seen the preliminary publications for a few of the stage 2/3 trial which are looking positive (no, not that Russian one, Putin declaring victory and vaccinating his daughter based on preliminary results would technically invalidate an RCT in most western nations...), that look on track to wrap up before the end of the year, so towards the end of Q1 of 2021 we could be at a point where there's broader distribution of a vaccine. That said, there's a reason why results are preliminary, so there's no guarantee that they will end up successful, but at least there are positive signals on a couple of trials, and many of the manufacturers have already started scaling up for rapid production in anticipation, which will help cut that turnaround to get it out more broadly.