FEW aspects of life are immune to coronavirus interruption, including professional sport. Melbourne's Australian Open tennis championship is under a cloud after a worker from an event quarantine hotel tested positive.
Next week's A-League match in Victoria between Melbourne's Western United and the Newcastle Jets has been postponed.
New question marks hang, too, over the already postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with polls showing major opposition to the event, scheduled for July 23 to August 8.
But uncertainty can create winners as well as losers. As we report today, Newcastle is in the running to host a top-flight World Championship Tour (WCT) professional surfing contest, as the privately owned World Surf League struggles to get its show back on the road after losing its 2020 season to COVID, and seeing the virus play havoc with the start of its 2021 series.
LOOKING BACK: Surfest in pictures
This year's season kicked off in Hawaii last December - where the tour normally ends - but coronavirus chaos arrived quickly.
The opening men's and women's events were completed, but last month's Sunset Beach contests were cancelled and the third leg at Santa Cruz, California, which should be under way now, has been postponed.
The Australian leg of the tour had three stops between April 1 and May 13: Bells Beach in Victoria, Margaret River in Western Australia and Queensland's Gold Coast. Reports emerged last month that the WSL was looking at an extra Australian contest as part of a "coronavirus bubble", given Australia's relative stability, disease-wise.
Lennox Head on the northern NSW coast was one contender, but sustained resident opposition seems to have knocked that on the head. Additionally, COVID concerns in Victoria and WA could prove difficult for Bells and Margaret River.
After Newcastle's second-tier WSL contest, Surfest, was cancelled for 2021, it would be a big boost to host a top-tier WCT event in the city.
In its heyday, Surfest was a top-flight tour stop, but it dropped down to the second tier when the so-called "Dream Tour" - prioritising world-class waves in exotic locations, and helped by digital broadcasting technologies - changed the game.
Still, Newcastle and Merewether beaches are iconic surfing amphitheatres, with great surf always possible, and would do the tour proud.
Here's hoping.
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