Maj. General Mahinda Mudalige and Saman Kumara appointed SAG and World Athletics Managers
The Athletics Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) has appointed Major General Mahinda Mudalige and Saman Kumara Gunewardena as Managers for the South Asian Games (SAG) and IAAF World Athletics Championships (WAC) this year.
The South Asian Games will be held from December 1 to 10 in Kathmandu, Nepal while the World Athletics Championships is scheduled to take place from September 28 to October 6 in Doha, Qatar.
Maj. General Mudalige was a veteran athlete in the late 70’s. He is now the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Army Sports Council.
Gunewardena has been an Athletics Statistics Recorder for over 22 years. He was a school-level former athlete. He is currently the Director of Sports at the University of Kelaniya.
The South Asian Athletics pool, consisting of 93 members including 51 men and 42 women, conduct their training sessions in Colombo and outstation facilities.
The SAG final trials will take place this week-end (August 16 - 18) at the Sugathadasa Stadium where the Athletics Selection Committee expects to reduce the contingent to 36 men and women each.
Maj. General Mudalige expects the Sri Lanka athletics team to train in Nepal or Bhutan for residential training in order to acclimatise for the climatic conditions before the SAG. Currently they are discussing the situation with the Ministry of Defence. The SAG was last held in 2016 in India where Sri Lanka bagged 37 medals including nine Gold, 11 Silver and 17 Bronze.
Maj. General Mudalige expects to win more Gold Medals this time than in 2016.
Currently only one athlete has qualified for the IAAF World Athletics Championships. She is Hiruni Wijeratne, who qualified from the Marathon event. Wijeratne, with US citizenship, returned to the island yesterday to take part in the SAG final athletics trials. She expects to take part in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres events.
Gunewardena expects that more Sri Lankan athletes will qualify at the SAG final selection trial.