BY ROMULUS HUTA
THE newly-elected president of Solomon Islands National Paralympic Committee (SINPC) will leave the country today to attend the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) 2018 Membership Gathering in Madrid, Spain.
President-elect Nihal Seneviratne is attending the gathering on behalf of the SINPC in his other capacity as the Solomon Islands Paralympic Chef De Mission for Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in Japan.
Mr. Seneviratne was accepted for the role after satisfying certain criteria as required by the IPC and the Oceania Paralympic Committee (OPC) and that led to his invitation for the trip.
The event in Madrid will be held this weekend – on Saturday and Sunday.
The objective of this meeting is to provide an interactive platform for all IPC members worldwide for strategic discussions and to exchange views on the IPC’s long-term development and so as discuss the upcoming international competitions.
“From now and onwards until the Tokyo 2020 Games, my focus is on three big events happening next year. They are the Arafura Games in Darwin, Australia from April 26 to 4th May 2019; Oceania Athletics Championship – Townsville, Australia from June 25th to 28th June, 2019 and the World Para athletics championship in Doha, Qatar from September 28th to October 6th 2019.
“All events are important ones on the calendar leading up to the Tokyo showdown.
“We are faced with a very big task of preparing our athletes to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Event. We are aiming to send a big team to Tokyo.
“Our entries have already been sent and athletes will represent Archery, Table Tennis, Athletics, Judo, Taekwondo, Triathlon, Swimming and Powerlifting,” Mr. Seneviratne said.
