Sri Lanka Athletics to receive US$ 40,000.00 grant from World Athletics

by Reemus Fernando

Several Asian Junior Athletics Championship medallists are among the top track and field athletes who will benefit from a World Athletics grant, which Sri Lanka Athletics (SLA) is set to receive shortly.

Sri Lanka Athletics is likely to receive the first half of a grant of US$ 40,000.00 from the world governing body soon, for its youth oriented development plan it has prepared targeting international achievements during the next two years.

“Sri Lanka Athletics proposed a development project targeting the next two years to ‘World Athletics’ and have received their support to spearhead the program. We will be receiving the first half of the funds shortly,” a senior official of Sri Lanka Athletics told The Island.

In the development plan, SLA identified the Women’s steeplechase, Men’s and Women’s 4×400 meter relays and the mixed relay as future medal winning disciplines

Apart from the Tokyo Olympics (2021) Sri Lanka are set to participate at several international events within the next two years. The country has the potential to strive for medals at three major international events namely the 2021 Asian Athletics Championship in Hangzhou, China the Asian Games in the same city in 2022 and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.

The World Athletics grant will help the local governing body to support its athletes financially to meet their nutritional needs and invest in training gear. The grant will also help them during competitions and the governing body to conduct training camps for the selected athletes through to 2022.

The local governing body in its plan had given priority to athletes who excelled at the Asian Junior Athletics Championship in 2018.

Asian Junior Athletics Championship medallist and 400 meters Championship record holder Aruna Dharshana and Youth Olympic medallist Parami Wasanthi are on top of the list of beneficiaries Sri Lanka Athletics has identified.

Dharshana clocked a record setting 45.79 seconds to win the gold medal at the Junior Asian event in Gifu, Japan in 2018. He has been dominating the senior Men’s event ever since and the silver medalist of the 2018 event, Pasindu Kodikara too is among the athletes picked. St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa sprinter Navishka Sandesh who won the silver medal at the Asian Youth Athletics Championship in Hongkong last year is the other 400 meters specialist.

Dilshi Kumarasinghe, the golden girl of the last South Asian Games, was also a winner at the last Asian Junior event. The former Ratnayake Central athlete clinched the silver in the Women’s 400 meters and clocked a personal best of 2:04.53 seconds to settle for bronze in the 800 meters. She also won a bronze in the 4×400 meters.

Parami Wasanthi who won the gold medal in the Women’s 3,000 meters Steeplechase in Hongkong and followed it up with the bronze at the Youth Olympics together with her training partner Ashmika Herath are in the development program as steeplechase specialists.

Among the athletes who have already been selected, the women’s 400 meters specialist Nadeesha Ramanayake is the only one who is not in that age category. She was part of the team that established a new Sri Lanka record in the Women’s 4×400 meters at the Asian Athletics Championship in Doha in 2019.

The senior official of Sri Lanka Athletics said that they were preparing to expand that team after reviewing the strengths of athletes at the National Trial. The National Trial and all track and field events scheduled for the last few months of the year were canceled or postponed due to the outbreak of Covid 19.