National beach volleyball tourney in December

(FASTNEWS | COLOMBO) –  The Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation (SLVB) is hoping to conduct the National Beach Volleyball Championship in December with the aim of preparing for the Asian Beach Games next year. Asian Beach Games was scheduled to be held from 28th November to 6th December in Sanya, China. They decided to postpone it to next year due to Coronavirus pandemic. The Olympic Council of Asia and Chinese Olympic Committee took this decision due to the present situation.

According to the senior official of the SLVB , due to the postponement of the this year Asian Games SLVB has decided to disband the National Beach Volleyball both men and women’s pool and send all the pool players and coaches back to their homes.

Meanwhile SLBV is planning to conduct four national level tournaments that were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic in the final quarter of the year (October, November and December).

The four competitions are the President’s Gold Cup, Munchee National Championship (Amateur and Super League), Junior National Under 23 Championship and National Beach Championship, In addition the Volleyball Federation has decided to cancel the most prestigious school tournament DSI Super sports Schools VB tournament this year.

Normally this tournament attracts more than 5000 teams from all over the country and unfortunately this time especially in rural areas school teams have missed this chance to take part due to postponement of the tournament.

The senior official of the SLVB said, this decision has been taken since approval has not been granted by the Education and Health ministries to conduct any school competition because of the prevailing situation in the country.

However Education Ministry is considering granting permission for schools sports associations to conduct their competitions during the third term following a number of requests made by sports associations.

The various school sports associations affiliated to the Education Ministry had made requests to conduct their annual competitions later this year after they were cancelled due to the covid 19 pandemic.

The special meeting held in the presence of the secretary of the ministry last week to grant permission for sports associations to conduct their competitions after the third term commences in November.

The third term will start on November 16 and the school sports associations can make requests with their plans to conduct the competitions. Education Ministry will consider their arrangements and the readiness to conduct events adhering to social distancing guidelines before giving permission. DN