JAKARTA, August 15, 2018: Basketball and volleyball teams be warned. Sri Lanka’s Chef de Mission Dampath Fernando says they will have to squeeze into their beds at the Athletes Village due to the small size of the cribs.
“Tall athletes might find it a bit uncomfortable,” smiled Major-General Fernando, the leader of the local contingent who arrived with the advance party last Sunday. “The rooms at the Athletes’ Village is quite small in fact with each unit having two rooms, a double and a single with single beds in it.
“The beds are quite small and a tall athlete might find his legs sticking out. But they will have to manage. Other than this small detail, everything is fine. The food is varied but our athletes might struggle a bit because it is not spicy. I hope they have brought some spicy sauces along,” laughed Fernando.
The Athletes Village in Jakarta is newly built in Kemayoran on 10 hectares of land. It has 10 apartment towers with a total of 7,424 apartments. Once the Games is over, the Indonesian government will sell these apartments to lower-income families.
Total accommodation capacity at the Village is 22,272, almost double the number of athletes from 45 countries who are trickling in for the 18th Asian Games which gets underway on Saturday. Another 3,000 athletes and officials will also be housed in co-host city Palembang.
Sri Lanka’s first batch of athletes – swimming and taekwondo – arrived yesterday afternoon (Wednesday). They were met at the Jakarta Airport by Fernando and deputy chef de mission Gamini Jayasinghe.
“From today our athletes will start trickling in. The final number is 163 athletes and 75 officials,” Fernando revealed. “Everything is going along smoothly. Of course,traffic is really congested in Jakarta but thankfully all the venues are quite close to the Athletes Village and they also have special lanes for Asian Games vehicles.”
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