Chamara Mihiran, the captain of Siyana Tharu SC from Gampaha, receives the President’s Gold Cup trophy from Ranjith Siyambalapitiya MP and President of the Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation at the conclusion of the all-island volleyball championships last week. Also in the picture are Ayesh Dilhara, Vice-Captain, SiyanaTharu SC, Theshara Jayasinghe, (partially covered) Chairman, National Youth Service Council, Harsha Samaranayake, Senior General Manager –Brand and Media, Group Marketing, Dialog (partially covered) Amal Edirisooriya, Director General – Department of Sports Development, Ministry of Youth and Sports and AS Nalaka, General Secretary, Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation.
The National Men’s and Women’s Volleyball Championships 2020 is to get underway from October16 commencing at district level.
The Championship which is sponsored by Ceylon Biscuits Limited for the 13th consecutive year will see the winners receive the ‘Munchee Trophies’ plus lucrative cash awards.
This year the championship will be staged in two categories the National Championship and the Super League for men and women. The National Championship will see nearly 2000 teams, 1,300 (men) and 700 (women) competing to qualify for the final stage of the National Championship. The Super League will be played among top leading volleyball playing teams that have won the championship earlier.
Army, Navy, Air Force, Ports Authority, Police, NYSC, Electricity Board and Ocean Lanka are the eight teams vying for honours in the Super League Championship.
The teams participating in the women’s Super League are Air Force, Army, Navy, Ports Authority, Hirdaramani SC and Ratanapala SC Mahauswewa.
These details were revealed at the press briefing held at the Tal Samudra Hotel last Wednesday.
“We are proud to be associated with the national sport of Sri Lanka for the past 12 years. During these years CBL has seen Sri Lanka improving very much in this sport. Sri Lanka was placed 112th and at present we have moved to 77th position in the world rankings and 10th in the Asian rankings,” said Chief Executive Officer CBL Nalin P. Karunaratne.
“I am happy with our players have come up in their rankings. Though volleyball is the national sport of our country it never had a permanent residence and a complex made especially for us. I am happy to note that the present Government within a short period of time has taken up the issue to look into this matter seriously and last week the Prime Minister and the Sports Minister have decided to hand over a fully fledged complex for volleyball in Galle,” said the president of the SLVBF Ranjith Siyambalapitiya who is also the deputy speaker of parliament.