Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 28, 2020: The National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka successfully conducted a Virtual Olympic Solidarity Sport Administrators Course last week.
The course was held on four days – September 17, 19, 21 and 22 – and followed the COVID-19 protocol guidelines.
This was the first occasion on which Sri Lanka NOC conducted the Olympic Solidarity Sport Administrators Course virtually.
A total of 78 candidates representing various sports organisations applied for the virtual course and 61 were selected to take part.
The selected participants were from a diverse sporting background including tennis, rugby and 10 undergraduates from the Sabragamuwa University of Sri Lanka.
Regional interest was also noted with the participation of Ms. Himani Rawal from Delhi – the first participant from another country to benefit from the Sri Lanka NOC project.
All the registered candidates were interviewed virtually one week prior to the course started and the selected participants were online throughout the course, which consisted of five sessions over four days.
Each session involved three hours of lectures and discussions. The sessions were conducted by the National Course Directors of NOC Sri Lanka - Mr. B.L.H. Perera, Group Capt. Nalin de Silva and Ms. Oliviya Gamage. Mr. Gobinath Sivarajah contributed as a resource person in this course.
Notably, this was the first occasion on which a workbook was designed for this course by Sri Lanka NOC to make the online programme more interactive. The workbook consisted of 10 activities that had two activities per session; it was mandatory for the participants to submit the completed workbook via email to receive the course participation certificate.
The IOC’s “Athlete365” platform was also included as one of the activities in the workbook, and all the participants were required to complete at least two courses on the platform.