World Athletics Day in Kalutara

H L Sunil Shantha- Kalutara Daily News Corr

The World Athletics Day will be held at the Kalutara Pasdunrata College of Education grounds, on May 21, said the Sri Lanka Athletics Federation Chairman Malith Fernando addressing media personnel of Kalutara district yesterday.

The press conference had been organized by the Kalutara District Secretariat's media unit and correspondents of both government and private media institutions participated in it.

The Athletics Day, scheduled to be held on May 21 has been named as 16th World Athletics Day and 1,000 sportsmen and sportswomen from schools from Kalutara, Matugama and Horana Educational Zones are expected to take part in 22 sports events in the age group of 16 and 18 years.

All the sports events and competitions are supervised and judged by abroad-trained, most talented sports officers and instructors, under the co-ordination of the Sri Lanka Athletics Federation. In addition to these events, 320 school kids who are under 11 and 12 years will also be participating in 'Kids Athletics' competition, representing 24 schools.

All the events are open to athletes representing any school in Sri Lanka.

All the first placed winners will receive a pair of spikes each and Rs 1,000 for all the 2nd places and Rs 500 for all the third places will be awarded by the Organizing Committee.

In addition to the above awards, a special T-shirt donated by the International Athletics Federation and a world recognized certificate, will be awarded to each successful competitor.

The aim of this Athletics Day is to make school athletics more popular and wide-spread among sports fans and the general public. Sri Lanka Telecom-Mobitel will sponsor all the sports events.