Sports loving President

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been a greater promoter of sports and has contributed significantly towards Sri Lanka's sports success. His influence and guidance made an immense contribution to promote sports at various levels.

Thus, Sri Lanka has become a great sporting nation in the Asian region while making vast strides at world level too. The sports-loving President has always made it a point to witness some of the key sports events to inspire our sportsmen and women.

The President has had a passion for sports from his childhood days. He had been a versatile athlete during his day and later played a keyrole as President of the national bodies for athletics and elle. As the President of the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) in 1997, the President played a keyrole to have star woman sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe exonerated of doping charges on medical evidence.

He has been a keen cricket fan and it is due to his untiring efforts that the 2010 World Cup cricket will be coming to Hambantota with a new international stadium.

When star batsman Sanath Jayasuriya's international career was in danger due to poor selection committee decisions in 2005, it was President Rajapaksa who intervened and met justice for the former Sri Lanka captain.

It was when President Rajapaksa was heading the local athletic governing body in 1997 that Jayasinghe won Sri Lanka's first IAAF World Championship medal in Athens. Ten years later when President Rajapaksa became the Head of State, Jayasinghe won her second medal - a bronze at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan in 2007.

Earlier this month, Prasanna Peiris rewrote Sri Lanka's bodybuilding history with the country's first ever medal at the World Championship. He bagged a silver medal in 65kg weight category at the 63rd World Bodybuilding Championships.

Days before the President's fourth anniversary, Sri Lanka athletics achieved another rare feat when high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekera bagged a gold medal at the Asian Championships in China last week.

Sri Lanka cricket team has been going from strength to strength, winning the Asia Cup and several other tournaments and cricket series during the past four years. Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup beating India in Karachi.

In boxing, Nilmini Jayasinghe winning a gold medal at the World championships in Petersburg, Russia. Her team mate Anusha Kodituwakku bagged a bronze medal at the Women's Indoor Games held in Hanoi, Vietnam. Sri Lanka also won two silver medals and a bronze at the Commonwealth Games weightlifting championships staged in Malaysia.