The 1st FAI Asian-Oceanic Paragliding XC Championship scheduled for December 2020 in Bright, Australia is cancelled, due to the current and ongoing worldwide crisis surrounding the Covid-19.

David Snowden writes:
‘It is with great disappointment that, on behalf of the organisational committee, we are taking this decision. We have been made aware that Australian national borders will remain closed for international travel for an undetermined period. We can surmise that this restriction is likely to continue through 2020 and prevail several months into 2021. There are also likely to be ongoing restrictions to travel from particular listed or countries with high infection rates. As well as the obvious risk of reintroducing infection from overseas, we believe the event would not have fair representation from several eligible Asian-Oceanic nations in the event of selective restrictions to entry into Australia.

This is clearly a “force majeure” “for the reason of significant risk to the safety of the participants” or “any other situation in which the safe and appropriate conduct of the event is no longer objectively warranted.”

We fully appreciate the offer from CIVL/FAI to postpone the championships to 2021 or 2022. At this time we remain unable to assure the health and safety of pilots, organisational staff and community in the 2021-22 time frame. We therefore regretfully withdraw from the bidding process.
I would personally like to thank all of the enthusiastic and talented people who have been involved to date in the organisation of the Test and Main events for their tremendous efforts and considerable time commitments given voluntarily towards hosting of these championships. 

I wish everyone a safe passage through these turbulent times.’

The event's website: https://airtribune.com/fai-ao-continental-test-bright/info