Hopes of British Athletes Dashed By Volcanic Ash
The hopes of 3 Great Britain’s hopefuls for the 9th European Deaf Athletics Championships being held in Baile, Felix, Romania 23-24th April 2010 has been dashed by the Icelandic volcanic ash tragedy. With the team’s departure date at the time of the eruption, travel plans went astray as EDSO informed the team a day before departure that the Championships was cancelled and moved to 10-12 September 2010. With the team worried how to make the journey to Romania when all the UK airports were closed, it was a welcome decision that the event would be rescheduled. Some of the team members cancelled their flights whilst others waited to see what the outcome would be.
A day later, we were told that the championships would be hosted as planned from 23-24th April. By the time we got this message, most of us had informed our employers that we would cancel our holidays and return to work. Fiona Bishops said “Oh my God. Am already back to work. How would I travel with a few hours notice? Not possible.” Tim Stone already missed his flight, as he “did not want to travel all the way from my base in South Africa to Romania only to see I was the only person there!”
It was only Candy Hawkins who made the trip supported by Team Manager Brian Kokoruwe who had to stop his house painting to make the trip to Romania. “I didn’t want Candy to go alone unmanaged. I had to support her decision” Said Kokoruwe. Sadly, all the hard training that Oliver Wesbury, Fiona Bishop and Tim Stone had done through the year for this major championships; went up in smoke and they could not make it.
