The Province of Manitoba has announced new Provincial Health Orders to come into effect on April 20, 2021.
This phase of Restart MB including the following announcements about sport and fitness:
• allowing outdoor sports facilities to reopen for casual sports as well as organized practices and games, with multi-team tournaments not permitted;
• indoor recreation and sporting facilities such as gyms, fitness centres and pools to open at 25 per cent total capacity, with public health measures in place including for spectators, common areas and locker rooms. The requirement to provide one-on-one instructions has been removed;
• gym, fitness centre and pool users must continue to wear a mask while working out and in all other areas of the facility, with the exception of while in a swimming pool
After a very long winter (even if the weather was absolutely lovely), we’re excited to see the reopening of indoor and outdoor facilities which should allow for training and programs to resume in a non-virtual capacity.
While the resumption of outdoor training is easily organized, we will need to wait for facility management at the indoor facilities (i.e. city pools and U of M fieldhouse) to determine the timing and protocols under which they’ll be able to reopen their doors. The City of Winnipeg has already advised they don’t expect pools to reopen before the end of March or early April. This delay is unavoidable, as lifeguards are rehired and retrained to ensure staffing and safety requirements are met. Triathlon Manitoba Swim Program restarted on March 29.
For Outdoor Training, sports are allowed to resume organized practices and activities according to the Return to Play documents that were approved for each sport. Triathlon’s Return to Play Approval still requires physical distancing of 2m to be maintained at all times, but allows coached practices and workout group sizes of up to 10 people. For larger programs, athletes are required to split into smaller groups to abide by the max 10 regulation, for both instruction and activities.
Coaches or workout leaders are required to have hand sanitizer and PPE available at all workouts. Triathlon Manitoba can provide such packages to programs if needed.
Triathlon Manitoba will continue working with Sport Manitoba, Swim Manitoba, Manitoba Cycling Association and Athletics Manitoba to ensure the restart of our sport happens in the most responsible way.
If you have any questions, please contact us at the office.
Further details can be found in the complete Orders Under the Public Health Act PDF, with the following relevant sections highlighted here for sport:
ORDER 13
- 13(1) Outdoor sporting facilities may open, subject to the requirements of this section.
- 13(2) Persons must not engage in outdoor sporting activities as part of a group of more than 10 persons, unless all persons in the group are participating in an organized practice, game or competition at an outdoor sporting facility.
- 13(3) Organized practices, games and competitions at outdoor sporting facilities may take place, but the operator of a facility must ensure that no multi-team tournaments are permitted at the facility.
ORDER 14
- 14(1) Indoor sporting facilities, including swimming pools, may open if the operator of the facility complies with all requirements of this Order.
- 14(2) Individual play, group and individual instruction, and team practices may take place at an indoor sporting facility but no organized team games or tournaments may be held at the facility, except as authorized under Order 16.
- 14(3) The operator of an indoor sporting facility must
- ensure that any group of persons participating in a sporting activity at the facility, excluding coaches or instructors, does not exceed 10 persons;
- take reasonable measures to ensure that there is no interaction between different groups of participants who are engaging in a sporting activity at the facility at the same time; and
- limit the number of persons in dressing rooms to 50% of the usual capacity or to a number that ensures that all persons in the dressing room are able to maintain a separation of at least two metres from other persons, whichever is lesser.
NOTE: you can have multiple groups of 10 participating in a sporting activity, as long as you do not exceed facility capacity limits and the multiple groups do not intersect or comingle.
- 14(4) The operator of an indoor sporting facility must
- implement measures to ensure that members of the public at the facility are reasonably able to maintain a separation of at least two metres from other members of the public at the facility, excluding participants engaged in a sporting activity; and
- limit occupancy to all portions of the facility other than dressing rooms and the areas where sporting activities are conducted to 25% of the usual capacity.
