Bathurst Little Athletics Club confirms season start date

The COVID-19 lockdown across regional NSW originally affected the club's start date and when restrictions eased, the NSW Government only allowed 200 fully vaccinated people to gather at an outdoor sporting event, making planning difficult for volunteers.

But after that cap was raised to 1000 last week, it meant organisers were finally able to confirm a start date for its athletes.

The 2021-22 season will officially commence on Thursday, November 4, with children under 16 not requiring a vaccination, however, all parents onsite must follow public health orders and be double vaccinated to attend.

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Bathurst Little Athletics president Mike Curtin said it's "extremely exciting" that the club can finally get its season underway.

"After the Olympic Games we had a great interest in track and field," he said.

"Although we're going to start the season three to four weeks late, it's very, very good we can get these kids back to community sport.

"Kids have missed a fair bit of normality in the past few months and it'll be fantastic to get back and start competition."

Curtin said the lifting of the cap to 1000 people took a huge amount of pressure off the club's committee.

"We will have to police that parents and kids are double vaccinated, however, the cap of 200 wouldn't have allowed us to have a competition night," he said.

"We've already got 100 kids registered, so if everyone had a parent and sibling there, we'd be well over that 200. The lifting to 1000 has made all the difference."

While the season will start later then planned, Curtin said the end of the season won't be extended.

"There isn't much point continuing later because a lot of winter sports like rugby league will look to take Morse Park to have their training," he said.

"It's a long season anyway. We were looking at doing 22 competition nights, so that's down to 19. We'll get six to seven in before Christmas and then we'll get 11-12 in the New Year.

"In a percentage of our season, it's not much that's been lost."

Patch collection cut-off for registrations will be on Thursday, October 27, at 5pm.

Patch collection and uniform purchase is only for "full season" registrations and will be on the same date at the Paddy's Hotel bistro.

Registrations can be done at www.bathurstaths.org.au.

For more information on the club, visit its Facebook page.

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