|
|
 |
| Sunday, 14 April 2002 |
 |
|
 |
Sports |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
16 countries confirm playing in Kandy rugby sevens by LAL GUNASEKERA Sixteen countries have already confirmed their participation at the 4th Singer-Sri Lankan International Rugby 7's of the Kandy Sports Club to be staged at the Bogambara Stadium from September 14 to 16. This is being sponsored once again by Singer (Sri Lanka) Limited and SriLankan Airlines with Connaissance de Ceylan as the co-sponsors. Chairman of the Organising Committee, Iswan Omar told the Sunday Oberver that they had written to 19 countries but those selected were South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Arabian Gulf, Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Kenya and Sri Lanka. He said: "Japan has yet to accept or decline the invitation, while Thailand has declined the invitation due to various problems. He wrote to Kazakhastan too. Sri LankanAirlines are arranging the bookings in advance and the flight itinerary have been conveyed to all the countries to arrange their travel programs. Complimentary air tickets for 10 players and two officials from the organisers too have been provided. George Simkin, China's national coach who is no stranger to Sri Lanka having assisted with the coaching of the Kandy Sports Club side for the past few years and also associated with the Singer-Sri Lankan International 7's said that several countries from the northern and southern hemisphere - Scotland, Wales, Fuji, Tonga, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea made inquiries and were interested to play when they were at the Hong Kong 7's last month (March). Omar further said that on an invitation by Jamie Scott the Secretary General of the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU), Chris Thau (Editor of the International Rugby Board (IRB) and media representative was in Sri Lanka with his television crew for a program on Asian Rugby and obtaining historical background of rugby in Sri Lanka. He was taken around by Dilroy Fernando and visited Kandy too. Wide publicity is being given to the Singer-Sri Lankan 7's by the official publication of the IRB and there may be a possibility of having this event (Singer-Sri Lankan 7's) being in the IRP Satellite 7's program in the very near future. Those in the Organising Committee headed by Iswan Omar are Dr. Sarath Kapuwatte, Geroge Simpkin, Priyantha Ekanayake, Palitha Amarasinghe, Malath Fernando, Bimal Fernando, Vinodhini Perera, Hemantha Yatawara, Arjun Dharmadasa, Danesh Silva, Asitha Abeysekera, Sanjaya Karunaratne, Kaushal Seneviratne and Lalith Fernando. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
