Selection trials for three junior international meets
The third South Asian Junior Athletics Championships will take place on September 9, 10 and 11 in Colombo.
The selection trial to select the team will be held on April 7 and 8 at the Mahinda Rajapaksa Sports Complex. This has been decided upon by the Sri Lanka Athletics Association.
Sugath Tillekaratne
This is the second time a South Asian Junior Athletics Championships is being held in Sri Lanka. The first was in 2007 in Colombo. The second took place in2013 in India. Sugath Tillekeratne, President of the Sri Lanka Athletics Association, has been successful in obtaining permission to stage this event in Sri Lanka. All eight South Asian countries have so far confirmed participation at the meet.
The selection trial fixed for April 7 and 8 will also serve as a trial for three other international meets. They are the 17th Asian Junior Athletics Championships from June 2 to 6 in Vietnam. The second being the first South Asian Athletics Championships in August, the dates have not been confirmed as yet. The third is the IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships from July 19 to 24 in Kazan, Russia.
Other than that the National Athletics Championships will be held on July 8,9 and 10 at the Diyagama Mahinda Rajapaksa Sports Complex. This will serve as the final chance for Sri Lanka athletes to qualify for the Rio Olympics in August. To date three athletes have qualified. They are Anuradha Indrajit Cooray (Marathon), Geethani Rajasekera (Women’s Marathon) and Sumeda Ranasinghe (Javelin).
There were hopes that more athletes would qualify for the Rio Olympics at the ongoing SA Games in India but to date no one has qualified. However Sri Lankan athletes have taken nine Gold Medals at the SAG. At the last edition held in Bangladesh they won eight.
