For the second year running the pandemic hit Olympic Day celebrations in Sri Lanka is staying indoors on June 23 and will go on full steam -- virtually on NOC Sri Lanka’s official Facebook Page from 9.00 a.m. onwards.
Symbolically 100 trees will be planted in Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka under the leadership of Vice-Chancellor Prof. Udaya Ratnayake with his staff especially from the Department of Sport Sciences and Physical Education.
This year too the event will have its special features like the first ever dedicated Olympic Day Song composed and sung by Mario Ananda and a short film contest which was opened to the general public.
“We have overcome this pandemic barrier through the help of modern technology. This year it will be one hundred per cent virtual. Even behind the curtain preparations we have been done according to the prevailing health guidelines to the letter.
“We have organized this in such a way that we will get the whole community behind us along with the international community and at the same time we are proud to say that we were able to successfully launch this program without undue concerns. Besides this we are hoping to launch many more programs for the benefit of the Lankan athletes along with the respective national federations in the near future,” said NOC Secretary-General Maxwell de Silva.
The NOC have been organizing this event for approximately two decades and have had elaborate spectacles in many cities around the island involving schoolchildren and the general public. The last occasion was in 2019 when it was held in Matara.
This time, the theme of the Olympic Day Celebrations 2021 will be “Respect, Understand and Move Forward.”
The keynote address on the Birth of Modern Olympic Movement and Olympism will be delivered by B.L.H. Perera, the Programme Director of NOC Sri Lanka. Then a virtual Olympic Torch Relay will be done by the athletes who are to take part in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and some of leading athletes. Finally, the Torch will be handed over to the Secretary General and the President of the NOC Sri Lanka. This will be followed by the welcome address by Suresh Subramaniam, the President of NOC Sri Lanka.
There will also be an island-level online quiz competition in three age categories on Olympism and Olympic Movement.