{"id":806789,"date":"2020-04-24T19:30:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T01:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=382233"},"modified":"2020-04-24T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T01:30:11","slug":"summit-county-sport-event-directors-community-gauge-possibilities-amid-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-sport-event-directors-community-gauge-possibilities-amid-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County sport event directors, community gauge possibilities amid coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"627\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/BreckEpic-SDN-081419-1024x627.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/BreckEpic-SDN-081419-1024x627.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/BreckEpic-SDN-081419-300x184.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/BreckEpic-SDN-081419-768x470.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/BreckEpic-SDN-081419.jpg 1422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>A mountain biker raises his first while pedaling past mountain goats while riding on the above-tree line terrain on the slopes of Mount Guyot during August 2019&#8217;s third stage of the Breck Epic multi-stage 6-day mountain bike race.<\/strong><br \/><em>Liam Doran \/ Breck Epic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>DILLON \u2014 From internationally-acclaimed endurance events to community cycling series and town recreation leagues, the sports scene across Summit County is full of uncertainty as the calendar approaches May.<\/p>\n<p>At Thursday\u2019s Summit County Board of Health virtual meeting, county officials, including county commissioners, mulled over how restrictions due to the novel coronavirus pandemic could limit \u2014 or eliminate \u2014 officially-sanctioned sports.<\/p>\n<p>As the officials chatted about the governor\u2019s regulation to limit groups of 10 or more, commissioner Elisabeth Lawrence said she\u2019d heard from local soccer and baseball groups wondering how that would impact them.<\/p>\n<p>County Manager Scott Vargo said he wasn\u2019t sure how regulations could work with youth soccer teams where the entire group is like \u201cone amoeba running around the field together, all within six feet of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row sd-donation sd-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Commissioner Karn Stiegelmeier pondered if something like a frisbee game, where people are far away from each other, could still be problematic considering different people all touch the same item.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know we are currently looking at that with staff what might be possible to start allowing for rec leagues and so forth, but they are considered high-risk transmission,\u201d Summit County Public Health Director Amy Wineland said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that discussion at the governmental level, local sport organizers are going ahead with planning in case they are able to host events and leagues. Last week, Vince Hutton, Breckenridge Recreation Sports and Special Events Director, said Breckenridge Recreation was considering if and how to conduct its camps and leagues safely.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Westcott, co-founder and sole proprietor of Maverick Sports Promotions, said he\u2019s waiting until Sunday\u2019s anticipated message from Gov. Jared Polis before taking more definitive action on plans for his annual summer Summit Mountain Challenge community mountain biking series.<\/p>\n<p>Westcott added that he doesn\u2019t anticipate being able to host any events in June, meaning the first two events of the Summit Mountain Challenge, the Frisco Roundup and the Gold Run Rush, would either have to be canceled or rescheduled. Westcott said he was wary of a potential rescheduling spree leading to a compression effect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s a certain amount of ethical responsibility to answering the following question: at what point is it better to just cancel?\u201d Westcott said.<\/p>\n<p>Both Hutton and Westcott said that smaller, local-based community events like theirs may be easier to put on. Westcott is planning eat the lost revenue from canceled events such as the Imperial Challenge winter triathlon and Five Peaks ski mountaineering race while managing expenses until more direction from government becomes available.<\/p>\n<p>For events like the Imperial, he said he\u2019d be able to weather the storm because expenses like athlete gifts could be held over to next year \u2014 though he lost money on expenses paid before the shutdown.<\/p>\n<p>Westcott has also applied for the government\u2019s Paycheck Protection Program \u2014 which he didn\u2019t receive on the first round \u2014 and COVID-19 small business loans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy business definitely met all the criteria for which to ask for support,\u201d Westcott said.<\/p>\n<p>In Copper Mountain, Adaptive Action Sports was one sports nonprofit that received several thousand dollars in a small business loans, according to Executive Director Daniel Gale.<\/p>\n<p>Westcott\u2019s fellow co-founder of Maverick Sports, Mike McCormack, he said the internationally-renowned multi-day mountain bike race also applied for economic disaster relief and is waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFiguring out if you get that or not is a needle hidden in a woods in an alternate planet in another universe,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n<p>McCormack said, as of now, the Breck Epic, which is hosted annually in August, is still being planned as \u201cbusiness as usual,\u201d though he recognizes at some point he may have to pump the brakes.<\/p>\n<p>This week McCormack sent out an email to the event\u2019s hundreds of competitors \u2014 which includes a field of one-third international riders and about 12% from Europe \u2014 who have been messaging him asking about what may happen.<\/p>\n<p>The Breck Epic is such a big event that planning for the event starts 18 months in advance and a lot has already been accomplished. In a positive sense, that is helping the event to proceed, in a negative sense, that\u2019s expenses already paid for \u2014 and possible losses if the event is canceled.<\/p>\n<p>McCormack has extended options for riders to defer and transfer their riding spots to subsequent years amid the pandemic. He\u2019s pushed expenses on labor and insurance to the last minute.<\/p>\n<p>And like Westcott, he will consider saving reusable items for next year\u2019s race if the event is canceled . In such a worst-case scenario, he said the event would survive to see next year despite the fact that his sunk costs are \u201cenormous.\u201d He expects that the financial effect would be spread over multiple years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not so different than the first one we launched in 2009, and that was right after the global economy tanked in 2008. We just mailed off an enormous check for merchandise, then the economy augured in,\u201d McCormack said. \u201cWhat we saw then, and what are seeing now, is, people put their recreation and fitness as last thing they\u2019ll sacrifice. \u2026We are being impacted to a great degree. I thought it was going to be horrible, but it\u2019s tolerable \u2014 still awful. But we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/summit-county-sport-event-directors-community-gauge-possibilities-amid-coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mountain biker raises his first while pedaling past mountain goats while riding on the above-tree line terrain on the slopes of Mount Guyot during August 2019&#8217;s third stage of the Breck Epic multi-stage 6-day mountain bike race.Liam Doran \/ Breck Epic DILLON \u2014 From internationally-acclaimed endurance events to community cycling series and town recreation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-806789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 00:24:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}