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Sports

Intruder at the AAA brain storming session
An intruder who introduced himself only as a former Journalist and a person connected with the Nationalised Services Athletics of yester-year surprised every one on Friday morning when he barged over to the podium and held sway fro over ten minutes. During his speech he also accused some of the media people at present of being incompetent and invited the AAA to provide them with some training in journalism.

However sanity prevailed and no one disturbed him during his hour-of-glory, but, some were asking the question if he was intoxicated during the world temperance day.

AAA's first brain storming session was a success
By S.R. Pathiravithana
A major portion of the local athletic elite converged in Colombo on Friday at the invitation of the Amateur Athletic Association of Sri Lanka to have a brain storming session to find solutions on how to bail themselves out of the predicaments that they are facing in the sport at present.

Invited to take part in the sessions were representatives from Athletic Coaching community, Sports Medecine unit, AAA officials, The Media and the Sportsmen and Women themselves making this the biggest ever athletic meeting (in numbers) in the history of Sri Lanka.

Opening the session the president of the AAA Sunil Jayaweera dwelled upon the athletic fraternity to work on one agenda so that it would help the sport to pick-up-the-pieces and forge ahead. He said that some persons critisized the performances of the Sri Lankan contingents and accused the officialdom of being bankrupt of ideas on how to breed a seasoned string. He counter charged in 1976 Sri Lanka failed to send any representatives to the Olympic Games and there after there was a decline in the sport. In 1984 the National School Games were formulated and launched and four years later they started reaping the benefits when sprinter Sriyantha Dissanayake bagged the 'Silver' at the Asian Games in China.

Speaking further Jayaweera said that the real results of the newly fourmulated system came at the South Asian Federation Games held in Colombo in 1991 when Sri Lanka dominated the track and field events winning 16 Golds beating the regional " giants " India. Then Jayaweera added " to the very date those athletes who dominated the 1991 SAF are still carrying on with the business of brining medals to the local coffers. However by the mid-nineties the National Schools Games gradually lost its glitter and the breeding of young hopefuls almost came to a standstill.

This situation ironically spelled doom for the country as they were left without any athletes in the second or the third string to takeover from the seniors." Taking this as an act of priority they have now devised a " Junior Athletic Plan " from February 2002, but they are hoping to get results of this move only by the year 2006. At present 54 athletes are in training in this squad.

Director National Sports Institute, Yogananda Wijesundera imparting his ideas brought forth the three pronged solution. He said that in 1986, 90, 91, and 98 Sri Lanka had various foreign coaches, but none of them had managed to train a single athlete who was of national standard. He said the need of the hour is to launch a " National Junior Policy " , Implement what is applicable from the " National Sports Congress " and to have a train-the-trainers programme for middle distance runners and jumpers.

Chandrishan Perera of Rugby fame adding his mite lamented that according to a research done by the "Australian Institute of Sport " Sri Lankans were the best in the world in 'hand-eye' co-ordination till the age of 12. From this point onwards the more affluent countries forged ahead as they possed better systems than us. He concluded by inviting the officials to find ways to reverse this situation.

It was during the next narration of Brig. Paddy Liyanage, the calm that prevailed in the Sports and Science auditorium took a battering. When Brig. Liyanage brought out the shortcomings at the medical unit of the Sports Ministry with Dr. Geethanjana Mendis bearing the brunt, the local athletes led by Susanthika Jayasinghe too took wings with the Brig. pointing out the difficulties they faced during foreign tours as a result of these shortcomings. Susanthika said that Sri Lanka had an inadequate amount of physio-therapists and as a result break-downs during tours were very frequent. Susanthika added " People tend to say that when we find hard we fake injuries, but, this is untrue, if we do not compete at a given meet our rankings go down, then as a result we do not get invited for the following Grand Prix meets.

Being in proper condition is paramount to us so we request that there should be atleast one physio for every six athletes." After further discussions it was decided to appoint Dr. S. Thurairajah with immediate effect to adress the situation.

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