A Grand Prix after the National Championship will help athletes improve rankings – Palitha Fernando  

by Reemus Fernando  

Sri Lanka Athletics is planning to conduct a Sri Lankan Grand Prix with the Sports Ministry’s support within two months after the centenary National Championships to help country’s top performers improve on their world rankings.

“The Sports Ministry together with Sri Lanka Athletics are planning to conduct a Grand Prix in June so that our athletes will get a chance to improve on their rankings,” Major General (Retd.) Palitha Fernando, the president of Sri Lanka Athletics said in reply to a query by The Island.

Sri Lanka Athletics celebrates the centenary year when the sport is struggling to match the huge advances it has made at world level. Despite the country having in its possession the history’s best athletes in a number of disciplines according to performances, they are lowly placed in world rankings as they do not get an opportunity to compete at top grade competitions.

Asked as to what plans Sri Lanka Athletics has to help top athletes gain better world rankings, Fernando said “we are not in a position to send a big number of athletes for overseas competitions. The Grand Prix here in June will help athletes improve their ranking. It will be held in two stages. That will be for a limited number of disciplines and only the top four athletes in the country in those disciplines and four top competitors from overseas will compete in each discipline at the Grand Prix.” Fernando was speaking to The Island on the sidelines of an event to announce SLT Mobitel sponsorship for the centenary Athletics Championships.

Sri Lanka Athletics is also expecting a performance boost from its top athletes when they compete against counterparts from several Asian countries including India and Malaysia at the 100th National Athletics Championships at Diyagama next week.

Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives have confirmed their participation for the landmark event which will commence on April 8.

With the three day event acting as the final selection trial for both the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, some of country’s top track and field athletes are expected to reach locally set qualifying standards for the two major international multi sports events.

Olympian Sumeda Ransinghe in the javelin, South Asian Games medallist Sarangi Silva in the long jump, the US based athletes Ushan Thivanka in the men’s high jump and Danushka Sandaruwan in the long jump and Italy based sprinter Yupun Abeykoon are among the top notch athletes who have almost secured their tickets for the Asian event while there are a number of others who are on the threshold of achieving qualifying standards.

‘