European Hill Race in Eschdorf 2021 cancelled 07.02.2021: The Union des Pilotes, organizer of the Eschdorf/Luxemburg Hill race, whose 32nd edition should have taken place on the weekend of April 30 to May 2, 2021, regrets to announce the decision to cancel its event just like last year because of the current hea

 
The Union des Pilotes, organizer of the Eschdorf/Luxemburg Hill race, whose 32nd edition should have taken place on the weekend of April 30 to May 2, 2021, regrets to announce the decision to cancel its event just like last year because of the current health crisis.

Are we sure that the evolution of the health situation will allow us to be able to compete in early May? Would we be able to welcome, in complete safety as in the past, an international line-up of almost 200 participating drivers and, depending on the weather conditions, up to more than 4,000 spectators, about half of whom would come from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, England and Switzerland?


Would it be conceivable, if necessary, to limit or even prohibit public access to an open-air course, and how then can we envisage covering the organisational costs, the sale of entry tickets normally covering about half of the necessary budget?


Is it reasonable to ask for financial and/or logistical support from our loyal sponsors, who are themselves being hit hard by the pandemic in economic terms, without being able to give them any guarantee of the feasibility of the event, nor in what form it could possibly take place and what would be the real advertising spin-offs according to the restrictions in force between now and the beginning of May?


A multitude of questions that have been on the minds of those responsible for the Union de Pilotes around its president Alain Pier for weeks, questions that are impossible to answer at the moment, but to which there will probably be no definitive answers even in one or two months' time.


But in order to organise an event of such magnitude, a certain degree of planning certainty is necessary to justify the work and time required by a rather small circle of volunteers as well as the financial stakes, whereby at present the feasibility is more like a lottery with a highly improbable hit.


Especially as the local conditions with part of the paddock in the middle of the village in direct proximity to the residents pose an additional difficulty at the current state of the pandemic.


 
 
Just like last year, the Union des Pilotes is therefore forced to pull the emergency brake before having to blindly incur the first organisational costs: "Our financial reserves are not such that we can take the risk of an edition 'behind closed doors' or even cancelled at the last minute.


Also, some of our few volunteers are less available at the moment because of the health situation, which makes the task even more complicated. It is therefore with a heavy heart that we have unanimously decided within the organising committee to cancel the 2021 edition of the European Hill Race in Eschdorf, scheduled for the weekend of May 1st, hoping that a more serene future will allow us to bounce back soon. »
 


Patrick Weber, translated deepl