On January 14th, Supermajor GENESIS 8 announced that it would be postponed from late January to the weekend of April 15th. This came amid cases for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 rising within the United States, as the safety of people attending the event were deemed at risk.
The decision – which came only two weeks prior to the event – took many by surprise. If a cancellation or postponement were to happen, it wasn’t expected to be announced so close to the actual event. This sudden news has led many people scrambling to refund flights and registration fees.
One of those players is Victor "raoul" Coulaud, a French Melee player that flew all the way to San Francisco just before the tournament was postponed. An outwave of support was levied towards the Fox main, who is now stranded away from home.
Longstanding figureheads and head TOs of the GENESIS series Boback and Sheridan explained the ramifications of the decision in an official statement. They explained that, “by postponing, we will be incurring costs into the six figure range.” The cost of both running and having to postpone events of this magnitude is lost on many smashers, so hopefully the community can rally around its organizers and help them in a time of need.
One such person looking to help out the TOs is John “KoDoRiN” Ko, top Melee Marth player and head TO of the Training Mode Tuesday online tournament. The usually free tournament now includes a 5 dollar entry fee, with 60% of that going directly to help the organizers of GENESIS.
Many competitors have already withdrawn their ballot to become the next GENESIS winner. A later date with hopefully better conditions regarding COVID-19 will allow a better tournament experience for everyone.
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