1016 Colours and Merits to be presented
After a lapse of two years, the Sri Lanka Milo Schools Colours Award Ceremony for the years 2016 and 2017 will be held on April 4 at the BMICH in Colombo. The merged event will see a total of 1016 students representing 30 sports who had won or participated at national and international level tournaments during the years of 2016 and 2017.
For the year 2016 a total of 216 Colours recipients have been identified while 303 will receive Merits, tallying up 519. For 2017, the total of 497 will include 269 Colours recipients and 228 Merits.
The organisers have made all arrangements to host both events on the same day at different time allocations. The day will begin with the 2016 Colours Awards at 8.00am and will proceed with the 2017 edition from 2.00pm.
For both years, the Sri Lanka Schools Sports Council (SLSSC) have named outstanding athletes for the two top awards — the Most Outstanding and Emerging for boys and girls. For 2016 Charith Asalanka (Cricket), L.P.S. Dananjaya (Athletics) and Imesh Udayanga (Table Tennis) have been nominated for the Most Outstanding Sportsman award while for the Most Outstanding Sportswoman award the names of Omaya Undayangani (Athletics) and Muthumali Priyadarshani (Table Tennis) have been put forward as nominees.
For the Emerging Sportsman award Akalanka Peiris (Swimming), Shalitha Weerasinghe (Athletics) and Sasindu Karunathilaka (Badminton) will compete while Chamathsara Divyanjali (Table Tennis), Ramindu Samarakoon (Swimming) and Zainab Sawmi (Chess) come in as nominees.
For 2017 Sasindu Karunaratne (Badminton) and Minula Doluweera (Chess) have been nominated for the Most Outstanding Sportsman award while for the Most Outstanding Sportswoman award Hansani Piyumila (Table Tennis), Sachini Divyanjali (Athletics) and Winoli Kaluarachchi (Swimming) are nominated. Swimmer Akalanka Peiris and athlete Santhush Weerasinghe have been nominated again for 2017 besides S.D. Kariyawasam (Athletics) for the Emerging Sportsman award. The Emerging Sportswoman award for 2017 has four nominees — Nahini Ambalangodage (Badminton), Sayuri Jayaweera (Chess), Anika Seneviratne (Tennis) and Kavindya Sathsarani (Athletics).
The final eight winners will be announced on April 4 during the two events taking place in the morning and later in the afternoon. State Minister of Education, Wijayakala Maheshwaran will attend the 2016 event as the chief guest while Minister of Education, Akila Viraj Kariyawasam will grace the 2017 event as chief guest in the afternoon.