2021 Water Polo Queensland State Titles announced

Published Fri 06 Nov 2020

Water Polo Queensland Inc. (WPQ) is pleased to announce the dates and venue for the 2021 WPQ State Titles. This event will be held at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre from Tuesday 19 January to Monday 25 January with Friday 22 January scheduled as a rest day! Below please find the schedule for the 2021 State Titles.

GOLD COAST AQUATIC CENTRE, SOUTHPORT

Age Divisions

Dates

Event duration

12&U, 16U& and Opens*

Tues 19 – Thurs 21 Jan

3 days

REST DAY

Fri 22 Jan

1 day

14&U and 18&U

Sat 23 – Mon 25 Jan

*Please Note: At this stage the Opens event has been scheduled from Tues 19 – Thurs 21 Jan as evening games after 6pm.

WPQ may consider moving this event to the weekend of Sat 23 & Sun 24 Jan if there is majority support from Clubs/Associations to do so.

President of Water Polo Queensland, Richard Powell said “This year has been a challenging year on many fronts and the impacts of the COVID pandemic are set to flow over into 2021. As part of the strategy for water polo in Australia, a National competitions calendar was developed and has been endorsed by WPQ. The calendar provides an annual framework for local, state and national competitions around the country. From 2022 onwards the WPQ State Titles will be held during the April school holidays each year. This is great news for our water polo community who can plan with certainty for the event each year”.

Richard also stated that “As alluded to above, the COVID pandemic is set to further impact our competitions in 2021. The AYWPC originally scheduled for January will now be held in April 2021 and revert to back to January for future years. The moving of this Championship event has had a flow on impact to the WPQ State Titles that were originally scheduled for April. WPQ’s options were very limited and we either had to cancel the championships for 2020/2021 or reschedule to January. Our players want to play and compete and it is beholden on WPQ to do whatever we can to make this happen. In the best interests of our playing community the logical decision to make was to hold the championships in January.

WPQ CEO Mel Woosnam said “WPQ is delighted that we are able to deliver the 2021 State Titles for our players, clubs and associations in January at the Gold Coast. We are grateful for the support the Gold Coast City Council has provided to accommodate the late scheduling of this event. The Gold Coast Aquatic Centres is a great venue for our premier State competition where players and teams can showcase their skills. The decision to host this event outside of Brisbane follows on from a stakeholder meeting in late 2019 where there was a strong desire expressed by many representatives at the meeting to take the State Titles outside of Brisbane to allow us to showcase the sport in regional areas that are capable of hosting this event”.

Water Polo Australia CEO Richard McInnes said that “WPA are very grateful to WPQ for their collaboration and cooperation as we all deal with the scheduling of our major events for 2021 in the face of ongoing restrictions imposed by the pandemic. We certainly hope that these restrictions are lifted in 2021, but we must plan ahead to ensure our members are notified well in advance. It will be a great opportunity for the water polo community to participate in a wonderful event on Queensland’s Gold Coast at the height of summer, before preparing for the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships in April in Brisbane”.

A call of entries for the 2021 State Titles will be distributed tomorrow to all Clubs and Associations as well as an Expression of Interest for suitably qualified Referees.

For further information regarding this event please contact the WPQ Office via email at jordan.sheterline@waterpoloqld.com.au or phone 3367 1661.

Melanie Woosnam

Water Polo Queensland CEO


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