ACU withdraw Team GB from World Junior Motocross Championship

The ACU has decided that Team GB will not attend the Junior Motocross World Championship this year, scheduled to take place on August 8-9 at the Megalopolis track in Greece, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The decision by the Auto Cycle Union comes, surprisingly before the event itself has officially been cancelled.

An ACU press release said the ACU “feel that planning and sending our youth riders to Greece at the this time is just too much of a stress on families and the potential risk is still too great.”

The chairman of the ACU, Roy Humphrey, said “It’s a welcome decision by the relevant parties because of the uncertainty around so many factors like International travel and transport, the pressure on families finances and health concerns.  We’ll try to make sure we return to the event in 2021 when this terrible pandemic is over and behind us.”

It is clear that the ACU has acted in what it believes to be the best interests of its youth riders and their respective families, and considering the state of the world at the current moment, and the uncertainty surrounding the current global health crisis in general, as well as the motorsport world, would suggest that the decision seems to be the correct one.

Furthermore, such an early decision provides clarity for the riders and their families, who have at least had some of the uncertainty taken out of their lives, although perhaps not in the way that they would have liked. 

That said, it is unusual timing from the ACU to make this decision. The event is not yet cancelled, and should it go ahead there will be several young riders who will feel aggrieved – if such a situation were to arise – to be missing out on an opportunity to showcase their talents on a world stage. 

Those same riders will have additionally had their seasons postponed to this point, and many will perhaps have not had the chance to race at all this year so far, with round one of the British championship at Little Silver earlier in the year cancelled due to the weather conditions, and the subsequent rounds postponed due to the coronavirus.

An alternative, and rather bleak, view would be that the decision of the ACU is indicative of the reality of the current global situation, which would suggest that the current situation could still wipe out the vast majority, if not all of, the remaining motorsport season. 

This, in reality, will only be discovered with time, but this decision is certainly not an inspiring one for people hoping that racing will resume at some point in 2020.