Archives

In order to popularise and promote the second msot popular game in the world, 'Basketball' in Sri Lanka among young children between the ages of four and 15 years, the Mini Basketball Program III commenced in March 2001 under the aegis of the Sri Lanka Veterans Basketball Association.

The objective of this program is to introduce the basics of basketball to young boys and girls so that they could acquire advanced techniques with time, expert coaching and practice. Training is conducted at the Otters Aquatic Club basketball court on Saturdays and Sundays both morning and evening (for different age groups). Every month a special Poya Day Program is conducted to improve physical endurance and fine-tune playing techniques, supplemented by a road run to boost stamina. The current program which commenced in March last this year will be concluded with the Mini Basketball Festival, the finals of which will be conducted on 10th March 2002. The seven coaches under whose guidance the children are being trained, are experienced and well versed with the game, have played national and/or international level basketball. Most of them have also coached a number of champion teams. These names include: Nowfel Mahroof, Tony Ganlath, Bernard Silva, Vincent Loganathan, Z.A.M. Mahroof, Pradeep Subasinghe and Apsara Sujeewani.

At present there are over 200 children from all communities unrolled in the program of whom about 150 actively participate in the training program. The 1 and 2nd Mini Basketball training program had nearly 100 children in each and concluded successfully with a mini basketball carnival which was attended by a large number of parents, officials and well-wishers.

The mini basketball festival to be conducted on 10th March is planned to be conducted with much pageantry, where the highlight would be matches being played among children of different age-groups. Though the finale was planned to be held at the Otters Aquatic Club which is the home of the program, due to unpredictable weather conditions predicted in March and going by the last years program which was totally affected by rain, the organisers have been compelled to conduct the final at the Sugathadasa Indoor Sports Complex.

The organisers hope to deposit a token amount in a savings book and make it available to each participating child, to induce them to save and make saving a habit in the future. The NSB which is a key sponsor will assist in opening the savings books. The best performers will be given awards in the form of gold and silver medals and all eligible participants will be awarded a certificate of participation. Four houses have been created to compete at the festival under the age groups of over 12, under 10 and 8. These houses have been sponsored by NSB, Unilever Ceylon Ltd., Edna Group and Uswatte Confectioneries. To motivate the children further, the respective houses will be given prizes.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager