National Sports Council of Sri Lanka revealed that they are willing to spend a larger sum of money towards developing athletes to reach medal winning level.
This was revealed by the chairman of the National Sports Council Arjuna Ranatunga at a media briefing at his office at Torrington Square on Thursday (24).
“We have selected the best available athletes into the high performance program and support them to develop their skills to reach Asian level and win medals,” said Ranatunga.
“The sports bodies were not very coorporative at the beginning when selecting the athletes for this program. They had to be nudged several times before they sent the names of talented athletes.
“This high performance program is an urgent need as our athletes have failed to win medals at Asian level. These athletes will have to consume nutritious food so that they can develop their muscles and skills to higher levels. This is why we will be offering them financial assistance,” added Ranatunga.
The athletes are grouped in four Tiers. The first Tier has 19 athletes, comprising four athletes, one weightlifter, 13 para athletes and one wrestler.
Tier II has just three athletes comprising one athlete and two para athletes.
Tier III has just one athlete while Tier four has 49 athletes out of which 28 are para athletes.
The amount of money given to each athlete in their respective Tier will vary as the best athletes are placed on the higher Tier.
Ranatunga also noted that for athletes to improve on their performance they should be found specialist coaches also. Sometimes they will have to be sent overseas for further training like Susanthika Jayasinghe and several others have done.
He also said that the officials who accompany the athlete will have to be of the same gender.
“It will be the responsibility of the respective sport when selecting their best athletes. Very soon the selection committee of cricket will be changed and the ministry has asked Sri Lanka Cricket to submit names of suitable people to be included into the selection committee,” said Ranatunga.
“We are also hoping to spend about Rs. 5 million at the beginning but our target is Rs. 10 million in the near future,” said Ranatunga.