The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed another local sporting event, the Canada 55-Plus games that were to be held in Kamloops.

The event was set to begin on August 25, attracting over 4,000 athletes to the Tournament Capital for a week.

President Henry Pejril says it was becoming clear with new restrictions because of the novel coronavirus, the games were not going to happen.

“The board were unable to work on planning the event,” he told NL Sports. “There is no way at this point that we can do any volunteer recruitment or anything like that.”

He says a joint decision was made to postpone the Games until 2021, however a date is yet to be determined. That decision was made with the support of the City of Kamloops.

“We’ve got a whole nation right now that is bending over backwards to try and protect a certain segment of society and for us to try and gather 4,000 people in that age group in one spot this summer would be pretty silly,” Pejril added.

He says the organizers want the event to be held in Kamloops not just for the athletes, but for the economic spin off it would create as well.