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| Wednesday, 11 August 2004 |
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Sports | |
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Countdown to the Olympic Games by Dinesh Weerawansa Sri Lanka to compete in three disciplines It's just a couple of days to for the commencement of the greatest sporting event on earth - the Olympic Games. The latest edition of the summer gams would finally return to its birth place - Athens, with over 10,500 sportsmen and women in action for 16 days of exciting competition. Within the 28 sports of the Olympic Games in Greece, there are a total of 37 disciplines. However, Sri Lanka would only compete in three disciplines, namely athletics, swimming and shooting. A discipline is a branch of an Olympic sport comprising one or more events. For example, aquatic sports is an Olympic sport with four Olympic disciplines coming under it - swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming. For a sport to gain a place in the Olympic proper, it must be "widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries and on four continents, and by women in at least 40 countries and on three continents". Let us take the three sports in which Sri Lanka will be fielding teams. The first and the most looked forward to is athletics, in which Sri Lanka has won their two medals - in 1948 London and 2000 Sydney. Track and field is one of the most popular sports around the world. It' s evenst are the oldest form of organised sport, and are associated with the simplest physical activities - running, throwing a stone, surmounting an obstacle. These activities gradually evolved into sports events such as running, jumping and throwing events. Athletics is divided into two main categories: events that take place inside the Stadium, and events that take place outside the Stadium such as the Marathon and road walk. Those played inside the stadium would comprise running, throwing and jumping. Athletics events in Greece will be worked off at the Athens Olympic Sports Complex (OAKA), with the exception of the marathon, the 20km walking events and the shot-put that will be held in the Ancient Olympia Stadium. The competition will take place over the span of 11 days from August 18 to 29 (rest day on August 19) . The marathon, in which Sri Lankan soldier Anuradha Indrajith Cooray would be taking part, will be worked off on its historic course, starting outside the Marathon stadium in the town of Marathonas and finishing in the Panathinaiko Stadium. The second discipline in which Sri Lanka will be taking part is swimming, but both the competitors come as wildcard entries. Swimming has been on the Olympic Games programme since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. The impressive representation of Aquatics sports in Olympic events continued with the inclusion of water polo at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, and diving from 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games. Eighty years later at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, in 1984, synchronised swimming was introduced to the official program. The disciplines of synchronised diving and women's Water polo were included in the competition program for the first time at the Sydney Games in 2000. International aquatic contests are governed by the rules of FINA, the International Swimming Federation. This is the highest authority for the sport, founded in 1908, which now includes 181 National Federations. For the first time in Olympic Games history, all Aquatics events will take place in a single venue, the Olympic Aquatic Centre of the Athens Olympic Sports Complex (OAKA). There will only be a solitary competitor for the third sport from Sri Lanka - shooting. But that lone Lankan shooter is an experienced campaigner - Pushpamali Ramanayake, who will be taking part in her third Olympics. Target shooting is considered one of the most popular sports internationally. It requires good physical and psychological condition, as well as technical perfection. It is open to men, women and children of all ages for recreation. On the championship level, it is the only sport where you will see a great difference in age between competitors. For instance, Konstantin Lukashyk, a 17 year old competitor representing the Commonwealth of Independent States, won the gold medal in the Men's 50m Pistol event at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992. The runner-up was the 58 year old Swedish competitor, Ragnar Skanaker, who had won the gold at the 1972 Munich Games and silver medals at the Los Angeles and Seoul Games (1984, 1988). The range for Olympic shooting competition would be the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre. The competition programme spans nine days, from 14 to 22 August. There will be 390 men and women competitors taking part in shooting. |
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