SOUTHERN COLORADO — We are less than three days until the Colorado high school state wrestling championships at the Southwest Motors Event Center in Pueblo, yet the Colorado Department of Health made a massive change on Monday for all of the wrestlers participating.
According to a letter sent out from CDPHE to all CHSAA schools, all wrestlers competing in the state wrestling tournament are required to get a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of competing.
This is due to the high number of COVID-19 outbreaks within wrestling teams in the last few weeks, per CDPHE.
Wrestlers may receive a test at their local health care provider or community testing site, but those tests usually take 48-hours to process. If a provider tries to turn a healthy student away, please show them this standing order for testing.
After the athlete receives his or her results, CDPHE is asking athlete to input the test result here or bring proof of negative test to check-in the day of the competition.
If testing results are not available by the time an athlete arrives at the event, on site testing will be required.
Rapid testing will also be available on site throughout the state championships at the Colorado State Fairgrounds. Athletes should plan on the testing process taking approximately 45 minutes to complete, although it could be longer if there are wait times.
All test results are final and athletes that test positive will not be allowed to compete, even with a false positive.
Also wrestlers were not required to take a COVID-19 test before the Regional tournaments, held around the state, last week.
News 5 Sports has reached out to the CDPHE and CHSAA for comment, and have yet to receive a response back.
This is an ongoing story and will be updated when more information becomes available.
