Over 40’s freestyle competitor Curly Sykes prepares for the start of the over 40’s race.

The Shine Shield Committee is hopeful that the Shine Shield Swimming Competition will be able to go ahead in January next year.

The 2020 Shine Shield was cancelled due to poor air quality caused by the smoke from the bushfires, while only the Harden and Yass events were able to commence this year before COVID restrictions prevented the rest of the series.

The Shine Shield is a swimming competition for the youth held annually between the towns of Yass, Harden, Binalong, Jugiong and Boorowa.

The 2022 edition of the Shine Shield is set to be the 55th annual competition. Belinda Pigram, a Shine Shield Committee member, is hopeful that the Swimming series will be able to go ahead from January, however, is still unclear on the logistics of the event.

“I’ve touched base with two other people in the committee, but we haven’t held a meeting yet due to everybody being in lockdown,” Belinda said.

“Our intention is, depending on COVID, that we will be running the five carnivals in January.

“But until we touch base with each community representative of the towns, we don’t know what the dates will be as of yet.

“A lot of it will depend on what restrictions on numbers will be in place at that time.

“We are planning on holding an event as Yass, Binalong, Harden, Jugiong and Boorowa.”

Despite an effort to get the series throughout all five towns earlier this year, the Shine Shield unfortunately had to be cancelled.

“We ran two events last summer, Harden and Yass. The carnivals went fine but our intention is to get the five carnivals back and running in January 2022,” Belinda continued.

“There will be stringent COVID restrictions that will be in place, and we will follow the guidelines for the pools at each Council.”

The Shine Shield Committee are striving to have a meeting next month to plan for the swimming series and finalise dates.

“We’ll try and have a meeting this month with our Shine Shield Committee,” Belinda said.

“As Hilltops is recently out of lockdown, it might give us a better chance of getting us all together.

“It’ll have to go to a Council meeting at some stage and the proposed dates be approved before they go ahead.”

Tim Warren