Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa has decided to give ten foreign scholarships to the athletes who perform well at the forthcoming National Sports Festival. This scholarship duration will be three years and ten athletes will be selected according to their performance.
The 46th National Sports Festival is scheduled to be held next December at the Sugathadasa Stadium and the Minister already has given instructions to cut down expenses in conducting this National Sports Festival and use that money for the athletes’ scholarships.
According to a senior official of the Sports Ministry due to the COVID-19 outbreak, all sports events will be conducted under the medical regulations and up to international standards.
There are 30 sports events included for the National Sports Festival while the Cross Country championship had already concluded at Nuwara Eliya on March 15 before the lockdown period. The three events Marathon, Cycling and Road Races will be held on October 11 and 12 at Kataragama. The events of the National Sports Festival were conducted in four stages divisional secretariat level, district level, Provincial level, and final stage National Sports Festival.
The winners of the divisional secretariat level advanced to the district level and the winners of the district level will qualify for the provincial level and provincial winners get a chance to take part in the National Sports Festival. The athletics event is the final sport to be conducted at the Sugathadasa Stadium and after 12 years athletics will be conducted at Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo.
The Sports Ministry already has allocated 75,000 rupees for each divisional secretariat Rs. 200,000 each for one district and Rs. 300,000 for each province The first, second, and third places of the individual events will receive 15,000 rupees, 10,000 rupees, and 6,000 rupees respectively while for the team events, each member of the winning team will receive 6,000 rupees and second and third place team members will receive 4,000 rupees and 2,000 rupees each. Also, the best athlete of each event will receive 20, 000 rupees.
Meanwhile, cycling, marathon, and road race winners will receive higher cash awards. The first place will receive 50,000 rupees while second and third places will receive 40,000 and 30,000 rupees respectively. In addition, from the fourth place up to ten will receive cash awards from 20,000 rupees to 8,000 rupees.
