The newly formed Colombo Athletics Club (CAC) will conduct their inaugural Championship ‘Colombo National Athletics Championship’ on 23 and 24 January at the Torrington grounds.
The said championship will be open to five age categories; namely: Under-9, 11, 13, 15 and 17. Organizers expect more than 3,000 athletes to participate throughout the two days.
The championship will be open to both local and international schools. A school will be allowed to forward any number of athletes for respective events, irrespective of any qualification criteria.
“When we consider a zonal athletics championship or of any school, they limit the number of individual athletes’ for participation of events, which is normally three. Because of this young students could be driven away from athletics early, since these aren’t staged to judge their talent. We, Colombo Athletics Club is trying to provide a platform without any qualifying standards to any athlete who wishes to participate in an athletic event” said Secretary of CAC and 1993 SAG Gold medalist of 110m hurdle, Chaminda Fonseka.
The championship will be conducted in line with the Sports Ministry guideline, where athletes who are in age categories of Under-9, 11 and 13 will be awarded merit certificates depending on their performance, while they too will carry points for their merit performances when considering the overall champion school. In the Under-17 and 15 categories, points would be awarded for the first six places of each event, which will help to declare the overall champion school.
Many ex-National athletes around the country have come forward to help this worthy cause, where CAC will select the 4 top athletes at the Championship and provide sponsorship for the rest of the year.
The championship will also see electronic timing results which would be updated on their website www.Colomboathleticsclub.com. The application form also could be downloaded through the website.
The championship has also included the 800m event for Under-17 category as per request by many schools. The entry fee per participant will be Rs 300 and further information could be obtained from Chaminda Fonseka (0779065995).
