Ray White Wanganui Sports Awards deferred until 2021

Sport Whanganui CEO Danny Jonas. Photo / Bevan Conley

Both the 2020 Ray White Wanganui Sports Awards and Wanganui Secondary Schools Sports Awards have been postponed to 2021 but nominations are still set to open next month.

Sport Whanganui will open nominations in this year's qualifying period (October 2019 to September 2020) from the Whanganui, Ruapehu, and Rangitikei regions on August 17.

Sport Whanganui CEO Danny Jonas said that "the stars weren't aligning" for an event to be held in 2020 and any potential awards ceremony would have been "diluted".

"From a national perspective, lots of these events have been cancelled," Jonas said.

"We wanted to ensure that performances were celebrated and that no one missed out, so they will be rolled into next year."

This year's achievements will be recognised at next year's ceremony, scheduled to take place in November 2021.

"It was a tough decision, but it was the right decision," Jonas.

He said the 2021 Sports Awards would also feature Masters Team of the year for the first time, for an outstanding performance by a team in masters-level sport.

"That's the result of feedback from the community, which is awesome, and reflective of our wider sporting family.

"It is important that we do celebrate success and celebrate amongst our peers, and that was definitely loud and clear.

"The work will still go ahead around collating the 2020 nominations, and we do encourage the codes to put those nominations in, because we're only as good as the information we get."

The nomination form for 2020 will be accessible at www.sportwhanganui.co.nz