April 3, 2020

Sad news: European Championship has been cancelled

Dear community,

We hope you and your families are safe and healthy.

This week we unfortunately had to decide to cancel the WCA European Championship 2020. Given the COVID-19 pandemic it is not realistic anymore to organize a championship of this scale this coming summer. It is very uncertain whether an event with so many competitors and visitors will be allowed by the authorities. And if so, it is expected that there still will be travel restrictions this summer, which will make travel from the rest of Europe (and the world) to the Netherlands problematic or even impossible.

Of course we have considered postponing the championship for a couple of months. Unfortunately the venue is not available later this year, so this is not an option.

Altogether, this means that there will be no European Championship in 2020. Obviously, this is not a decision we ever imagined we would need to take. We wanted nothing more than to offer you a fantastic experience this summer! So we are very sorry that we have to disappoint everyone who was looking forward to this event. 

We will fully refund the fees paid by the competitors. We have some losses because of costs we already made. Thanks to our main sponsor Rubik’s Brand Ltd these costs will be covered, which we are very grateful for. We will try to get all refunds done within two weeks. 

We would like to thank everyone who contributed in the past year to this championship. Our sponsors Rubik’s and Koninklijke Jumbo, the volunteers who were already working for us and who put an enormous amount of effort into this, the more than 260 (!) people who applied for a volunteer position during the championship, Almere City Marketing, the always helpful managers of the Topsportcentrum and many more… Many thanks, it was a pleasure to work with you.

We hope to welcome you in the Netherlands at another time and under better circumstances. We wish you all the best in this difficult period. Stay safe!

Best,

Heleen, Hans, Ronald, Philippe, Ron, Henrik and Sandra