National marathon, race walking, cycling at Kataragama in October

by Reemus Fernando

The National Marathon and three other grueling road events of the National Sports Festival will be held on October 10 and 11 at Kataragama. The Department of Sports Development of the Ministry of Sports sent documents pertaining to this major sports event to the Provincial Directors of Sports yesterday.

“We will conduct the event at Kataragama since it is convenient to provide logistics,” Jayantha Siyamudali who has been assigned to organise the event told The Island.

The Race Walking and Cycling events of the National Sports Festival will be held in Kataragama on October 10.

“Like in the last year we are going to conduct it as an open event to boost participation. However all applications should come through the Directors of Sports of each province,” said Siyamudali.

The decision to conduct it as an open event lessen the burden of Provincial authorities who otherwise have to conduct their own Provincial distance events to select participants for the national events.

Closing date for applications is September 30.

The decision to conduct the marathon. Race walking and cycling events is further confirmation that the National Sports Festival would be held later this year.

The three grueling road events of the national sports festival will be the first major sports events conducted by the Department of Sports development after all sports came to a halt due to the corona virus pandemic in March.

The national marathon is returning to Kataragama after a lapse of seven years.

Sri Lanka Army’s Tissa Gunasekara was the winner when the event was held at Kataragama in 2013.

Last year the event was conducted at Anuradhapura.

Dhammika Arunasiri in the men’s category and Nisansala Bandara in the women’s category are the defending champions.

Country’s distance runners have been yearning for competitions since the last National Marathon.

Marathoners were hampered by the absence of top events including the Colombo Marathon organised by LSR following the Easter Sunday blasts in 2019 and due to the covid 19 pandemic this year.

Many international marathons including major Asian marathons have been cancelled due to the pandemic.

This year’s edition of the LSR Colombo Marathon too remain doubtful. The annual event which is the only international marathon held in Sri Lanka is held in the first week of October.

A top official of the Lanka Sportreizen said that a fresh request to conduct the event has been sent to the AIMS, the world governing body of marathons.