By Dhammika Ratnaweera
The 1st selection trial for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and the Selection trial for the Asian Junior Athletics Championship will be held in next April with Sri Lankan athletes have a very busy schedule in the year 2020. Their main focus in Tokyo Olympic which scheduled to be held from 31st July to 9th August. After the successful South Asian Games held in Kathmandu in last December, seven athletes who performed well at the SAG will compete for the first international event of the year Asian Indoor athletic championship in China which will be held on 12-13 February.
SAG triple gold medal winner Dilshi Kumaraisnghe and double gold medal winner Nilani Ratnayake are among the seven athletes for the Indoor athletic championships. In addition, the 3rd International Race Walking championship will be held on 15-16 February in Ranchi, India. Sri Lankan athletes once again will compete for the IAAF world indoor athletics championships in Nanjing China on 13t o 15 March.
The first selection trial for Olympics and Asian Junior Athletic Championships scheduled to be held on 8th and 9th April and this is going to be very important for local athletes. Asian Junior Athletic Championship will be held on 15 to 17th May in Bangkok, Thailand. The 98th National athletic championships will be the final selection for the Olympics which scheduled to be held on 2to 4th June at Sugathadasa Stadium. Meanwhile, Junior National athletics championship will be held from 11 to 14 June at the Sugathadasa Stadium. Before the 32nd Olympics Games in Tokyo the IAAF under 20 world championship in Nairobi on 7to12th July.
However, so far none of the Sri Lankan athletes has not qualified to take action in the Olympics, while all of them have busy schedule prior to the major Games to get an Olympic qualification. The senior official of the Sri Lanka Athletic Association said they have the plan to send few athletes for the special foreign training . Especially Sri Lankan 4×100 relay team who set up new South Asian record have more chance to enter the Olympics. If they will get more exposure they can easily reach the qualifying standard. Meanwhile, Hiruni Wijayaratna who won the first-ever Sri Lankan south Asian marathon gold medal also aim to get the Olympic qualification and she already involves hard training in the USA.
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