Plans for the Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Championship 2013 have stalled as both Christchurch and the Gold Coast removed their expressions of interest to host the tournament.

Representatives from both cities have written to the Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Association to officially withdraw their expressions of interest and declined to place an official bid to host the tournament for 2013.

Christchurch representatives withdrew due to most players having constraints on their time in the next year, including completing of studies and the rebuilding houses and businesses after last years devastating earthquake.

“[Christchurch] are critically aware of the amount of work required to organise this event successfully and do not feel that 2013 is going to be a suitable year for our club to commit to this workload.  Many of our players are completing studies in this timeframe and some will be re-building homes and businesses within the next 12-18 months, following the enormous amount of demolition going on here post earthquake.”

Christchurch's home courts

The Gold Coast‘s statement has pointed to ongoing set backs, including the loss of their home courts at Miami High, as the reason for withdrawing their bid.

“[The GC] are still developing the sport on the coast and are working towards hosting a few social tournaments. We’ve had a lot of set backs since returning from Nat’s this year. For a tournament on this scale alot of factors have to line up finical [sic], political, amenities etc just to name a few.”

The GC's home courts at Miami High which have now been revoked.

These sudden withdrawals leaves a void as no other bids have been made. The deadline for expressions of interest has passed, only the Gold Coast and Christchurch indicated they would bid. The Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Association (Jedi Council), are now determining the timeframe for new expressions of interest and bids.

To express interest in hosting the AHBPC 2013 contact your local representative and refer to the bidding process outline on bikepolo.com.au

For more info on the AHBPA and who your local representative is see our previous article on the Jedi Council .

by Oliver Wykeham

History

The Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Association (also known as the Jedi Council) was formed in June 2011.   It is made up of representatives from polo playing cities of Australia and New Zealand.  This was the first step in unifying Australasian Bike Polo.

At the time the AHBPA was formed, the main things we needed to work out were:

• How many World’s places we were getting for Seattle  and how would these be distributed?
• Who would host the next Australasian Championships?

These two aims were achieved.  The fact that only Perth put their hand up for AHBPC 2012 made the second goal a lot easier.

The main form of communication with the AHBPA is a google email list (although we have dabbled in Facebook).

Originally, there were 2 representatives for New Zealand (North Island and South Island) but this has now been expanded to be 8 representatives for 5 cities.

Who are the representatives and how were they chosen?

The cities and representatives are as follows:

Australia
Adelaide – Neil Waterhouse and Ben Hughes
Brisbane – Jordan Heppell and Simon Mitchell
Canberra – Tom Partington (Pending confirmation from Canberra)
Gold Coast – Bennett Rust and Jock Cockburn
Melbourne – Damon Rao and Will Jetnikoff
Perth – Wall Parker and Prawi Woods
Sydney – Brook Tait-Styles and Virginia Castellan

New Zealand
Auckland – Leo Fais de L’air
Christchurch – Craig Johnston and Mark Penrice
Taupo – Nigel Tipene and Shane Blackmore
Timaru – Sam Callander
Wellington – Nathanael Fournier and Abe Hollingsworth

The method of choosing representatives was left up to each city.  Some cities used secret ballots, others just pointed to the people they wanted and said “you do it”.

The representatives are supposed to be your voices in Australasian Bike Polo. They should be keeping you updated about what is going on and checking  how you feel about any issues discussed.  If you have any concerns about your representatives, talk to them and to people in your city.  If you all think someone else could do a better job, then say so and make it happen.  If you think your representatives are doing a great job, then please let them know they are appreciated.

What next for the AHBPA?

The AHBPA needs to work out where AHBPC 2013 will be held.  At this stage there are two cities that have expressed an interest in hosting – Christchurch, New Zealand and Gold Coast, Australia.  Bids will be finalised in the next couple of months and all players will have access to the details of the bids and will be able to ask the bidding city questions so they can help their representative make a decision.

The AHBPA will also co-ordinate the distribution of World’s places.  At this stage we have no idea how many places we will be getting but it is likely to be less than the 6 we got last year.  Last year the places were assigned in order of ranking at AHBPC 2011 with a team needing to comprise of at least 2 of the original members.  Once we had offered every place down the line to 8th, the remaining unfilled places were given to people that were going to Seattle anyway.  I assume this will remain the same this year.

Disclosure:  This post has been written by Virginia Castellan for GOALHOLE and not in her role as Sydney Representative for AHBPA.  The opinions expressed are personal and are not the opinions of the AHBPA or Sydney.