An Olympic Medal in 2024
A plan to win a medal at the 2024 Olympic Games has been launched by Minister of Education Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, said Sunil Jayaweera, the Special Consultant Sports attached to the Ministry of Education to the Sunday Times. This is a school level plan.
Sunil Jayaweera
Prior to this the National School Games concept was launched in 1984 when the Education Minister was Ranil Wickremasinghe. This plan was also conducted by Sunil Jayaweera. Due to this, sports in schools shot up considerably. A result of this athletes such as Sriyantha Dissanayake, Damayanthi Dharsha, Sugath Tillekeratne and Sriyani Kulawansa won medals at Asian and Commonwealth Games.
Susanthika Jayasinghe went on to win medals at the Athens World Championships and the Silver Medal in the 200 metres at the Sydney Olympics 2000. Now the level of sports has dropped to a drastic at school level. Due to this Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has appointed Sunil Jayaweera as a Special Consultant Sports through a Cabinet approval last week. Sunil Jayaweera is scheduled to take over his job in the coming week.
Sunil Jayaweera is a top level sports administrator. In 1968 he joined the Sports Ministry as a Sports Officer. As a coach too he has produced several top athletes. In 1983 he functioned as an Assistant Director of Sports when Ranil Wickremasinghe was the Education Minister. The National School Games concept emerged during this time.
During this time National Level sportsmen and women were invited to join as Sports Teachers. A result of this was over 2000 such Sports Teachers found employment at Government Schools. Some provinces had special sports national schools. Due to this schools sports shot up to the top. Athletes who emerged from these schools also shot up at the National level as well.
For the first time at the 1991 Colombo South Asian Games Sri Lanka was able to topple India to win the Athletic Championships. Women too came to the fore by winning the Volleyball Gold Medal. Sri Lanka has not been able to win these events after that.
Due to the success shown by Sunil Jayaweera was appointed as the Director of Sports Education. Then in 1991 he was appointed as the Deputy Director General Sports attached to the Education Ministry.
In 1997 he was forced to retire due to political reasons by the former Education Ministeer, the late Richard Pathirana. As a result sports in schools fell into the doldrums. Sunil Jayaweera said that he has once again been nominated to bring up the level of sports at school level by the present Minister of Education on the advice of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe.
“This is not an easy task due to the pathetic situation that school level sports has dropped. This is why 2024 is being targeted to bring up the level of sports. We are also planning to employ national level athletes to schools,” said Sunil Jayaweera.
Sunil Jayaweera also functioned as President of the Sri Lanka Athletics Association from 2002 for two years. He was also vice president of the Sri Lanka National Olympics Committee.