Winona State University started off their fall semester negating intramural sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the risks that were involved with it.

Recently, Mark Bambenek, director of intramural sports came out with a plan of action to allow intramural sports to be played this semester.

The list of activities has been modified to follow the guidelines that have been in place amid COVID and are planned to be socially distanced with mask requirements enforced.

Bambenek was previously noted stating that they had plans to execute more individualized sports.

“Now we have some plans for more individualized sports like pickleball, badminton, horse shoeing contests, one-on-one type individual things where it’s not a team activity, but students still can participate a little bit,” Bambenek said.

The official list of sports and activities that are eligible for registration are various one-day events that consist of a basketball horse competition, cornhole tournament, soccer shootout and more things in that nature.

The league sports are restricted to one-on-one and two-on-two challenges that are pickleball, spikeball, cornhole and badminton.

The league sports were established to limit the overall contact between players within matches.

Bambenek said physical contact sports will still be prohibited and they will put those options in consideration in the spring if positive COVID cases have dramatically decreased.

Fitness classes will be returning as an alternative option.

The classes will be Monday through Thursday and will be at hour time slots from 4 p.m. through 6 p.m.

To ensure safety amid the pandemic, the classes require participants to reach out to the instructors to ensure a space in the class prior and there will be restrictions on space in the class.

Participants will not be allowed to walk in and join; they will have to reserve a spot.

Students are looking forward to participating in activities this fall despite the interesting situation.

Some students say they are ecstatic at the fact that intramural sports are coming back after being told that they were going to be cancelled until further notice.

With these intramural sports coming to fruition, the main question is if the return of these activities is a smart and responsible move.

The intramural activities will be following and checking in on the students to make sure that they are not participating if they have been exposed or feel like they have symptoms of COVID.

According to Bambenek, they will be required to fill out a daily health check to confirm that they are not having any COVID symptoms and if they say yes to any symptoms, they will not be permitted to participate in their events until said otherwise.

Although it may be refreshing to give students another outlet within the madness of school, the confusion of where COVID is going is a scary factor on what could happen.