National Cycling Championships on August 11 and12

By Susil Premalal

The Cycling Federation of Sri Lanka has scheduled the National Cycling Championships to be held on August 11 and 12 in Colombo or Kurunegala.

The District Cycling Championships will take place in June and July, and the winners will qualify for the National Cycling Championships.

The District Championships will be conducted in Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Galle, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Puttalam and Kandy.

The third edition of the Sri Lanka T-Cup International Cycle Tour was scheduled to commence yesterday but it has been postponed indefinitely due to the situation prevailing in the country.

It was due to run till May 12, over a distance of 350 km from Pasikudah to Negombo. The event is being organized by Lanka Sportsrizen who have postponed it to later this year.

The longest cycle race in Sri Lanka is the SLT Speedup which has been scheduled for June 25 to 29 and no change of dates for this competition have been announced.

Sri Lanka’s next international target is the South Asian Games (SAG) from December 1 to 10 in Kathmandu, Nepal where a full men's and women's team are being sent by the Cycling Federation of Sri Lanka according to N. Karunaratne, President Cycling Federation of Sri Lanka.

At the moment a SAG Cycling Pool of 60 men and 15 women are currently training in Anuradhapura under National Coach Upali Ratnayake. A selection trial will be held at the end of the month where it will be dropped to 15 men and 10 women.

From June 1, a residential training camp will be held in Anuradhapura until August. The final selections for the SAG is expected to be named after that.