4th Rimfire World Championships postponed to 2022

Dear Delegates,

I have been waiting and hoping until the very last moment, before announcing that unfortunately we have to cancel our 4th Rimfire World Championships.

There are several reasons for this :

1. Our Ministry of Sports strongly recommended doing so, because at this date, we are not sure that the Covid-19 situation will be under control by September 2020. Although here in Luxembourg, our government is starting a tentative exit from the lockdown next week, we cannot completely exclude the possibility of a second wave of infections, with people becoming less cautious and thus taking more risks. This would mean a second lockdown for a period including most certainly September.

2. Since our RWC4 were supposed to take place in Volmerange/France, we are obliged to also respect the French rules of confinement, and the French Shooting Federation (FFTIR) clearly prohibited all competitions for the current shooting season 2019-2020 ( cfr: www.fftir.org)

3. Considering that the Corona-crisis did not start simultaneously in every country, it is legitimate to suppose that, for the same reason, not every country will have surmounted this crisis at the same date: USA, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Russia, South Africa…etc. will probably have to face it for a bit longer and therefore not being able to travel around in September. It goes without saying that as a logic implication, the attendance to our RWC4 would be rather poor and not worthy a World Championship.

For all these reasons, we have decided to postpone our Rimfire W.C. to 2022, thus respecting a 2-years rhythm, also because 2021 is already scheduled for the Benchrest Centrefire World Championships as well as for the WRABF World Championships. (The exact dates will be communicated in due course)

Best regards and stay safe,
François Luciani
President WBSF