Cork gym to reopen on May 24 'regardless' of Covid restrictions

ONE Life Fitness, who have two gyms in Cork, said that they will be reopening on May 24 “regardless” of the Government’s announcement on Thursday evening.

Ahead of the announcement by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, One Life Fitness took to their social media channels and revealed their intentions to reopen their gyms on May 24.

“We are starkly aware of the declining mental and physical health of our members and feel compelled to provide some genuine positive answers for you,” read a social media post.

“We plan to reopen all of our clubs 24th May regardless of what information is broadcasted tomorrow during the [Government’s] announcement. We ask for your support and thank you so much for your continued patience during this unprecedented time.”

According to the plans for the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, announced on Thursday, gyms, swimming pools, and leisure centres can reopen for individual training from June 7.

However, managing director of One Life Fitness, Greg Kenny, said the plan remains to reopen their clubs on May 24. Speaking to The Echo, he said he did not understand why “dry gyms”, or gyms without swimming pools, could not open earlier in line with personal services.

“We feel let down by the Government completely and I think what’s happened here is everybody has kind of rejoiced because there’s an end in sight instead of realising if personal services are open and non-essential retail is open, why would you not open the gym?

He said that they choose May 24 as it was the date they had hoped to have been reopened by.

“If personal services were going to open on the 10th [of May], we would have assumed that we would reopen on the 10th, but we said we’d give two weeks just in case, to give them a bit of wiggle room but the fact that they have pushed it back another two weeks on top of that — nearly a month after personal services start.” “It doesn’t make sense,” he added.

Mr Kenny said that they are hoping other gyms will also follow suit and said that their own plans to reopen will be at a reduced capacity and through a booking system.