Respect, Understand and Move Forward
The Olympic Day is customarily celebrated with a run and social awareness programmes, but for the past two years celebrations have been restricted to indoors or virtual technology due to the pandemic according to the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka
For the second year running, the pandemic hit Olympic Day celebrations in Sri Lanka stayed indoors but, the iconic June 23 celebrations went on full steam — virtually on NOC Sri Lanka’s official Facebook Page from 9.00am onwards.
This year too, the event had its special features like the first ever dedicated Olympic Day Song composed and sung by Mario Ananda and a short film contest which was opened to the general public.
Commenting on the event NOC Sri Lanka Secretary General Maxwell de Silva said: “We have overcome this pandemic barrier through the help of modern technology. Last year though it was also a restricted situation we had a limited number of people taking part, this year number is zero – it is one hundred percent virtual. Even behind the curtain preparations we have been done according to the prevailing health guidelines to the letter.”
“We organised this in such a way that we will get the whole community behind us along with the international community and at the same time we are proud to say that we were able to successfully launch this programme without undue concerns. Besides this we are hoping to do launch many more programmes for the benefit of the Sri Lankan athletes along with the respective national federations in the near future,” he added.
The National Olympic Committee has been organising this event on its own for approximately two decades and have had elaborate spectacles in many cities around the island involving schoolchildren and the general public. The last occasion the event out of Colombo was in 2019 when it was held at Matara.
The first Olympic Day was celebrated on June 23, 1948. On this occasion, Sigfrid Edström, IOC President at that time, conveyed a message to the young people of the world and as a result Portugal, Greece, Austria, Canada, Switzerland, Great Britain, Uruguay, Venezuela and Belgium organised the Olympic Day in their respective countries.
This time, the theme of the Olympic Day Celebrations 2021 was ‘Respect, Understand and Move Forward’. The keynote address on the Birth of Modern Olympic Movement and Olympism was delivered by B.L.H. Perera, the Programme Director of NOC Sri Lanka. Then a virtual Olympic Torch Relay was done by the athletes who are to take part in Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and some of leading athletes. Finally, the torch was handed over to the Secretary General and the President of the NOC Sri Lanka.
Following the welcome address by Suresh Subramaniam, the President of NOC Sri Lanka, some of the OVEP Debaters, who have taken part in 2020, shared their insights about the pillars and theme of the Olympic Day.
Symbolically 100 trees were planted in Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Prof. Udaya Rathnayaka with his staff especially from the Department of Sport Sciences and Physical Education. This is counted as an initiative for the ‘One Million Tree Plantation’ project which will be supposed to commence soon by NOC Sri Lanka.
Under education pillar, an island-level online quiz competition will be conducted in three age categories on Olympism and Olympic Movement. NOC Sri Lanka brought international leaders to share their messages on Olympic Day. Especially, the messages from Dr. Thomas Bach, the IOC President, Mayors of Hashima City and Sammu City in Japan, a member from the Organising Committee of Asian Games 2022 in China, Brian Lewis, the President of Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee and Dr. Alexis Lyras, the President of Olympism for Humanity Alliance shared their views during the virtual telecast.
Moreover, a short film competition was also conducted under the theme of the event. Under the sport pillar, athletes from different districts representing different sports were interconnected to share their thoughts as a motivation to keep the society active.
At a time when the whole world is facing hardship of COVID-19, NOC Sri Lanka took the leadership to share COVID-19 prevention message which was delivered by Dr. Himan de Silva, the COVID-19 Liaison Officer for Tokyo 2020 Sri Lanka Contingent, Olympic Sports Physician and one of the members of the Medical Committee of NOC Sri Lanka.
A documentary of Mathilda Karlsson, who is the very first Tokyo 2020 qualifier and first-ever equestrian representing Sri Lanka to an Olympic Games, was screened. Mathilda was born in Sri Lanka and adopted in her early childhood to Sweden where she learnt show jumping and finally made Olympic ticket for equestrian. Finally, the Olympic Day 2021 concluded by vote of thanks by Maxwell de Silva, the Secretary General of NOC Sri Lanka. In the evening, from 5.30pm to 7.00pm, a Multi Disciplinary Academic forum on ‘Olympism for Humanity’ took place with local and international multi-disciplinary personalities.