Hopefully the last of our COVID-19 updates that's negative.

Over the last few days, a number of National Tournaments, and pseudo-National-Tournaments (like Australia's Great Southern Slam) have been postponing or cancelling their competitive seasons.

The biggest National Tournaments in the Roller Derby community, the Championnat de France and British Championships, announced their cancellation of the current competitive seasons on the 1st April and today, respectively.

In terms of France, this was an easier decision to make slightly earlier - their competitive season runs from late-Autumn to early Summer, rather than within the same year, so the current pandemic restrictions cover almost all of their remaining season. Their announcement was made via the MyRollerDerby Facebook account, here:

https://www.facebook.com/Myrollerderby/photos/a.877129749133391/1447453628767664/?type=3

For British Champs, this will have been a more nuanced decision, as their season only started 2020, but it's clear that with the lost of months of competitive time, and the fact that inevitably, their competitors will be out of peak training (and potentially out of pocket) for some time after restrictions are loosened, it was the only reasonable decision. (Two weeks ago, BC and UKRDA were actively working to try to salvage some of the season, but it is clearly impossible at this stage, due to the increasingly obvious duration of the disruption.)

British Championships will restart in 2021, with a brand new season.

The announcement from British Champs can be found here:

https://www.britishchamps.com/2020/2020-season-announcement/

In Australia, the Great Southern Slam - the largest Roller Derby tournament in the world - is also being affected, as we mentioned above. Avoiding calling it a "cancellation", TGSS are instead "postponing" to 2021.

The announcement for TGSS's new date was made here (with the announcement of the original 2020 event not happening being a week previous):

https://www.facebook.com/greatsouthernslam/photos/a.279323135499330/2803312556433696/?type=3