British Wheelchair Basketball has today announced the sport will move to Stage 3 of its Return to Play Matrix from Wednesday (23 June), permitting contact training to return across the UK, in line with BWB’s Return to Play Guidance.
As the sport has moved cautiously through its Return to Play, this has allowed BWB to take the next step, despite the delay to the next phase of re-opening nationally. The move to Stage 3 will allow participants to return to passing a ball to each other and games within a training environment for the first time since before the pandemic.
Ahead of the move to Stage 3, BWB has today updated its Matrix and published Stage 3 Guidance which clubs and participants must follow if returning to contact training.
As with all other Return to Play Stages, all participants must only return to Stage 3 activity by their own informed choice through an ‘Opt-in’ and consent process. The Stage 3 Guidance (which can be viewed here) outlines the measures that clubs and participants must follow, including regular cleaning (every 15 minutes) and the requirement of lateral flow testing for stage 3 activity.
Another change for Stage 3 is that the limit on the number of people attending the sessions is now dependent on club’s Home Country guidelines and venue capacity, with social distancing of at least 2m+ still the expectation at all other times aside from during play.
While this will no doubt be welcome news to many involved in the sport, for clubs who are not yet in a position to return to contact training, Stage 1 and Stage 2 Guidance is still applicable and can be viewed here.
Following the recent Government announcement regarding the delay to the lifting of national restrictions, BWB has amended the date of permitting competitions to return under Stage 4 until no sooner than 19 July 2021.
British Wheelchair Basketball’s Membership Team is always here to help and can be contacted via 01509 279900 or membership@britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk.
More information can also be found on the Return to Play section on the BWB website: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/return-to-play/
