IAAF Kids’ Athletics First awareness Kids’ Athletics programme a success

The inaugural IAAF Kids’ Athletics programme jointly organized by the Ministry of Education and the Athletics Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) and sponsored by Nestle Lanka PLC that got underway at the Bogambara Ground Kandy ended with tremendous success.
The programme saw the participation of children of grade 3, 4 and 5 from 40 schools in the Kandy District.
The children from the 40 schools were selected after conducting the division athletic meet in April and were categorized into three groups, boys, girls and mixed.
The main vision of the programme was to train and encourage the children in order to get them interested in sports activities and to lay the platform to enter sports from a young age.
The skills of the children were tested in various sports like rope skip, knee throw, hurdles, forward squat jump, rotation throw, pole vault, target throw, formula 1 and endurance which would help them understand more about sports when they grow up.
Vidyartha became the boys champion, Girl’s High School the girl’s champion and Thalathuoya Kanishta Vidyalaya the mixed schools champion.
Chief Guest at the opening and closing ceremonies was B.A. Abeyratne, Director of Sports Minister of Education with Bandula Egodage Assistant Vice President, Corporate Affairs Nestle Lanka PLC and Chairman Export Development Board gracing the occasion as the guest of honour.
Following the success of the inaugural programme the Education Department will draw up plans to conduct the other programmes as early as possible and the schedule will be released in the near future.