School Sport New Zealand has confirmed all events on the national calendar have been suspended following the latest Covid-19 coronavirus restrictions put in place by the Government.
SSNZ announced the decision late last night after the Government advised all non-essential events that would bring more than 500 people together should be postponed or cancelled.
In a statement, SSNZ said they would review the suspension on April 6.
It means events prior to that - which includes national championships for tennis, waka ama, volleyball, futsal, softball, lawn bowls and more that were meant to be part of the summer tournament week - must be either postponed or cancelled.
"Some events where alternative dates are not possible will be cancelled, others may be postponed and we will work with national sports organisations to make announcements in due course," SSNZ said.
Of all the events affected, the largest potentially is the Maadi Cup rowing regatta, which was scheduled to start on March 30 at Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel.
Rowing NZ confirmed the event was cancelled shortly after SSNZ's announcement.
"Rowing NZ understands this will have significant impact upon school rowing programmes but remain supportive of the government’s Covid-19 containment initiatives."
SSNZ said the precautions were being taken because schools would be travelling from all around the country to attend the numerous events, introducing "a potentially heightened risk of wider community spread by comparison to regional or local events".
"Medical advice is that the risk of transmission is low at community level, where there has been no person-to-person spread, but significantly higher in situations in which airports, air-travel and hotels are involved as characterised by events on the School Sport NZ national calendar.
"While student participants are registered, the 'un-ticketed' nature of events on the national calendar make it extremely difficult to contact trace as other attendees are not registered.
"The close personal contact nature of sport carries a heightened risk of person to person transfer."
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