A contingent of 89 young Sri Lankan gymnasts left Bandaranaike International Airport on 14 October for the inaugural Asian Gym for Life Challenge in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
The group is split between 44 gymnasts in the Mixed Team and 45 in the Girls’ Team, drawn from 15 schools across the country, the Colombo Gazette reported. The Daily Mirror, which published the full squad list of all 89 names, confirms the size of the party and that it includes both girls and boys.
The schools
The participating schools are Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo 05; St. Bridget’s Convent, Colombo 07; Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya; Musaeus College, Colombo; Vishaka Balika Vidyalaya, Sapugaskanda; Mahamaya Girls’ College, Kandy; Mahamaya Girls’ College, Kadawatha; and St. Peter’s College, Gampaha.
Also represented are Lyceum International School, Kurunegala; Holy Cross College, Gampaha; Mahinda Rajapaksha College, Homagama; Viharamahadevi Balika Vidyalaya, Kiribathgoda; Girls’ High School, Kandy; Samudradewi Balika Vidyalaya; and Ferguson High School, Ratnapura.
The spread runs well beyond the Colombo schools that usually dominate national squads, taking in Kandy, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Kiribathgoda, Homagama, Sapugaskanda and Ratnapura.
A discrepancy worth noting
The two newsrooms do not agree on the size of the support staff. The Colombo Gazette puts the number of accompanying officials at 11; the Daily Mirror says 12. Neither names them. This desk is recording both figures rather than choosing between them.
On the gymnasts themselves the two accounts reconcile cleanly: the 44 and 45 team splits sum to the stated 89, and the Colombo Gazette’s list of schools comes to exactly the 15 it claims.
What the event is
The championship is the first edition of the Asian Gym for Life Challenge. Gym for Life events are team display competitions rather than conventional apparatus finals — the format rewards choreography, creativity and group performance, and is open to participants across ages and ability levels rather than to elite specialists alone.
The International Gymnastics Federation’s own event listing gives the dates as 15–19 October 2026 in Yogyakarta, which would mean the competition is already under way; this desk could not confirm those dates through a verified newsroom.
The announcement carried by the Colombo Gazette describes the championship as a platform for young athletes to demonstrate gymnastics ability, creativity, discipline and teamwork alongside participants from across Asia, and frames the trip as a chance for students from different schools to build friendships through the sport.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the names of the officials, the coaching staff, or who selected the squad. Neither says how the contingent was funded, whether the schools, parents or a national body met the costs, or how the 89 were chosen from the 15 schools.
No results had been reported at the time of writing, and neither account states which countries Sri Lanka is competing against or how many nations have entered.