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Its 44 days to go for the 43-nation Asian Athletic Championships to be held in Colombo in August. This is the seventh in a series of articles in the ANCL English language, which leads the largest ever sporting event to be hosted by Sri Lanka. The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL) (Print media sponsor) and Dialog GSM (Sri Lanka team sponsor and the official web hoster) are two of the six Gold sponsors of the event.

The new Susathadasa Outdoor Stadium track will be ready to host the 2002 Sri Lanka National Championships, National coach and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Sports, Dervin Perera said yesterday.

Perera said the relaying the new track at the Sugathadasa Stadium for the forthcoming Asian Athletic Championship, is nearing completion. "The asphalt layer, one of the hard layers of the base, has been laid. Now its only a matter of laying the final synthetic top and doing the markings, which would take about two weeks," Perera said.

He said the material of the synthetic layer for the new Rekottan track has already been brought. The top synthetic layer alone would cost USD 405,450, of which USD 100,000 has already been paid to the local contractors. Green light has been given to release the balance payment too.

National coach Perera expressed confidence hosting the 2002 Sri Lanka National Championship on the new track. It will be the first and the only meet to be held on the new Rekottan track before the 14th Asian Athletic Championships in Colombo in August.

Sugathadasa Stadium is being given a complete new look for the mega event, the biggest ever to be hosted by Sri Lanka. Originally, the stadium had only a seating capacity of less 1,700, which went up to 2,000 with extra seats.

But 2,000 fixed seats would be installed at the venue for the Asian Athletic Championships. "With this 2,000 new seats, we hope to have a total of 5,000 seats for the meet," Director of the Sugathadasa Stadium Complex, Cmdr. H.U.

Silva said. He said the ground authorities are making every effort to keep the venue in the best shape for the big event.

Vietnam and Syria are the latest nations to send in their entries for the Asian Championship in Colombo. So far, 503 athletes - 330 men and 173 women from 33 countries have confirmed their participation. This is except for the largest ever contingent of over 100 athletes to be fielded by the hosts Sri Lanka. There will also be over 200 officials accompanying the visiting teams. Both Vietnam and Syria would field eight athletes each.

The Secretary General of the Asian Amateur Athletic Association, Maurice Nicholas, during his last week's visit to Sri Lanka, has stated that the cream of Asian athletes would be taking part at the Colombo championship, which would also serve as a trial to pick the Asia team for this year's World Cup in athletics to be held in Spain.

He has also assured that Colombo would be a regular venue for the Asian Grand Prix series starting from next year. Hyderabad, Manila and Bangkok hosted this year's inaugural Asian Grand Prix. But, Nicholas, inspired by the organisation skills of the Lankan officials, has assured that Colombo would be one of the three cities hosting 2003 Asian Grand Prix series. Asian Athletic Secretariat chief, Prema Pinnawale said Colombo has a good chance of being selected as a regular venue for the Asian Grand Prix series. 

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