The 32nd Mercantile Athletic Tournament – 2015 which is organized by the Mercantile Athletic Federation will commenced on 22nd and 23rd of August 2015 at the Diyagama Mahinda Rajapakshe sports complex with Mr.Nandana Wickramage as the chief guest of the event. The main platinum sponsors of this tournament is Ritzbury Chocolate brand of Ceylon Biscuits Limited (CBL), the largest FMCG conglomerate in the country as their 13th consecutive year and the Gold sponsorship is sponsored by the NDB Group as their first time.
There will be representing 51 companies with about 1500 players for this 32nd Ritzbury Mercantile Tournament in 35 different athletic events. The winners will be selected under several different categories according to their divisions as age limit of under 35, under 40, under 45, under 50, Novice and Champions.
The newly joined players are in the category of Novice and the national level winners or previous champions are in the category of champions. The federation has planned to participate about 110 foreign players from India who have been qualified from the Indian mercantile federation to compete with the Sri Lankan mercantile players.
The president of the Federation Mr. Sydney Rathnayake mentioned that they have decided to participate the champions of the tournament for international tournaments such as Singapore athletic tournament and Indian athletic tournament. “Our vision is to be the best in the mercantile athletics and now we have reached it. The secret for that is a hard working committee which we has especially maintained their dignity and they don’t have any corruption.” said the president of the federation.
In parallel with this according to a proposal bought by the CBL group Mrs. Theja Peiris, the federation has brought up a scholarship called ”kreeda sawiya”. Two players have been awarded with this scholarship. They are Yamali Dulanjalee in the 400m hurdles event and Chamal Kumarasiri in Tri Jump event. “We are partners since 2002 where this tournament was not so glamorous and I’m so happy to see that now this tournament in this level”. That is what Mrs. Theja Peiris mentioned in the last evening at the press conference of the 32nd Ritzbury Mercantile Athletic Championship.
