Barring setback in pandemic trends, 2021 Penticton Dragon Boat Festival is a go

Barring heightened provincial government pandemic regulations in the weeks ahead, September is setting up to be a heck of a month for sporting-centic events in Penticton.

The Prospera Granfondo Axel Merckx Okanagan is currently set for Sept 19. The new date for the Subaru Ironman Canada-Penticton -- Sept 26 -- is one week later.

And leading it all off, at least if its organizing body has its way, will be the 20th annual Penticton Dragon Boat Festival on Sept 11 and 12.

"If BC's Return to Sport Restart 2.0 and the PHO's Restart Plan continue to be as successful as they have been, we see no reason why we can't deliver another awesome weekend of racing", said Festival race director Don Mulhall earlier today.

Mulhall is fully aware that it wouldn't take much to impact BC's "Restart" plan, which has currently pegged Sept 7 as the earliest possible day for a "return to normal sport competitions" and "increased indoor and outdoor spectators."

"Our event is September 11th and 12th and step four in the restart plan is September 7th," he said. "So all that would have to happen is a delay of a couple days here or there and we'd have to shut it down.

"But we never formally canceled the 2021 event. We were waiting to see what transpired. And now we're liking what we see and we're going to do everything we can to make it happen."

There would likely, he admitted, be some "modifications." But he feels the Festival's Skaha Lake setup gives the event some freedom and a lot of wiggle room.

"We're going to do whatever we can do within whatever the provincial health officer's verdict is at the time," he said. "It's a constantly changing thing, but because we're locally organized -- the City of Penticton supports us so well -- and because we've got lots of space over several kilometers of beach, it looks good."

Mulhall expects athlete attendance for 2021 to be a little sparser than the norm -- for obvious reasons.

"At the present time, we don’t think a lot of teams are even training yet, provincial health orders being what they are," he said. "So we don’t think we'll have our usual 2,000 people.

"But we'd be happy to be at 50%. We could even turn it into two half-day events. We have so many ways we can put this on.

"We believe that based on what's happening now, we can put on an awesome event for Penticton."