Source:  Press Release issued by Welsh Government and Sport Wales

Emergency funding of £400,000 for community sport in Wales has been announced by Welsh Government and Sport Wales.

Welsh Government has confirmed they are making £200,000 available to provide support to not-for-profit sports clubs. This is being match-funded with £200,000 from Sport Wales.

The impact of the Coronavirus comes just weeks after many clubs in Wales were severely damaged by flooding caused by storms Dennis and Ciara.

“It really is an unprecedented time for everyone and we’re acutely aware of the challenges to Wales’ sporting infrastructure,” said Sport Wales Acting CEO, Brian Davies.

“We’re really grateful to Welsh Government for this additional funding – it really will be a lifeline for community clubs.

Orienteering is cancelled in the UK for some time to come. That includes the JK, Britain's biggest annual orienteering competition which takes places over Easter. To help soften this blow GB Squad member Chris Smithard has created a virtual orienteering competition - The Lockdown Orienteering Easter Championships. Comprising of 12 challenges over the weekend to test many of the different skills involved with orienteering like routechoice and map memory as well as races using the orienteering computer game Catching Features. At the end of the weekend an overall winner will be crowned.

There will also be JK inspired challenges during the weekend with links to classic JK races over the competitions 50 year history.

If you're up for the challenge or want to find out more please visit:  lockdownorienteering.com/

Sport England has launched a new fund to help community sport and physical activity organisations who are experiencing short term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

The fund has been developed to help community sport and physical activity organisations meet their obligations, in particular fixed costs, which are no longer supported with revenue as a result of coronavirus. This might cover expenditure on:

•            Retrospective losses dating from 1 March, 2020.

Further details can be found here.

In the men's sprint today, Sasha Chepelin ran a great race, from a late start, to finish in 5th, 17 seconds behind the eventual winner, Olli Ojanaho (Finland) and just 7 seconds behind bronze placed, Joey Hadorn (Switzerland).

The course was technical, with many intricate route choice legs that provided a challenge for the athletes. Sasha said "A steady and secure race overall, but with a few small misses which cost me a really nice result, but the podium is already well beyond what I was hoping for at the sprint race. I really didn't put much effort into geeking nor hours into training for the discipline. In the end, it was a case of planning ahead and taking the foot off the gas frequently, and I think that suited many forest specialists very well, including me!"