Sports

Sports

Cinderella Children
By S. R. Pathiravithana
According to the fable it was Phoenix who rose from the ashes. Ironically contrary to the age old fable in Sri Lanka it is the athletes who rise from the ashes and dust bring honour and fame and give this little island another image than what it is generally famous for.

At the same time in this week’s column we are trying to address two issues – the first being athletes and man management and the second is suggesting ways to bureaucrats and other haughty high ranking sports officials on how to keep their traps intact and not open where it is unnecessary.

First we will take the sentiments of sports ministry secretary Wirithamulla on Chinthana’s medal winning and why he was not present there. This high ranking bureaucrat when asked why no one was present to congratulate Chinthana when he won the medal is alleged to have said that the officials who were present in Melbourne had better things to do rather than being present at every venue where Lankans were winning medals.

He also had added that we must not go overboard with these achievements so that the athletes in question will not lose their heads and balance when accolades come their way. Blimey! I wonder from which strata of general life that Wirithamulla hails? Or else he seems to have some chip on his shoulder about a raw rural kid winning ‘golds’ at the commonwealth games or at the same time he is very concerned about these raw lads winning such accolades in fear that they might just lose their heads and may drop their standards in the future. The other very amusing question that we must ask the bureaucrat Wirithamulla is how many medals Sri Lanka did win at the Commonwealth games and at how many venues he was present to cheer our athletic contingent?

Then in another statement NOC chairman Hemasiri Fernando had got so angry with the lackadaisical performance of our athletes had mentioned that Lankan athletes should be not be taking part in any overseas meets during the next three years and they must concentrate on uplifting their standards under foreign coaches. Then may I take the liberty to ask if Sri Lanka is planning to give a skip to the Doha-Qatar Asian Games in December? At the same time didn’t the Lankan coaches go up in arms recently when three foreign coaches were brought to Sri Lanka? At present two of the foreign coaches are based in India while the other is in the Middle East working as a coach for a higher pay.
Coming back to Phoenix, it must be mentioned that over 95 per cent of the athletes who brought the bulk of the medals have come from outstations and in that too they belonged to the category of poor to very poor. For instance the present captain of the Sri Lanka contingent to the Commonwealth Games Damayanthi Dharsha too hailed from the backwoods of the East Coast in Ampara.

Susanthika Jayasinghe, the first woman to win a medal at the Olympics came from the village of Athnawela off Kegalle, Sugath Tillekeratne from Norton Bridge, Sriyani Kulawansa from Ibbagamuwa, Rohana Pradeep Kumara from Wennappuwa, Manjula Kumara from Pelmadulla, Prasanna Amerasekera from Welimada and the list goes on. The fact is that all these athletes came from backgrounds which are different to their counterparts from more affluent middle class backgrounds in the metropolis. As far as the middle classes are concerned, a child getting through the CIMA is the biggest achievement in life. Yet for these village people this may be the only form of salvage in life and they go for it with all determination and end up in a Cinderella World which they have never experienced before.

The problems start at that point when they enter the Cinderella World. All of a sudden they are uprooted from their traditional backgrounds are now are with chariots’ horsemen and soldiers in attendance. They will have no more “Ala”, “Batala” or “Mannokka” as their majority meals and those will be supplemented by balanced meals recommended by dieticians and also the other charming but condescending people.

Further to the Wirithamulla view what should be done is when an athlete reaches the national arena he/she becomes a potential medal winner. Besides that every athlete who takes part at these meets becomes formal ambassadors of this country who take a special message across our seas to another country and thus to the whole world. To my mind the preparations in man management should begin at this point.

They must be sent through the mill in every aspect of things that they should be prepared to face in life in the near future – eating wise, language wise, social behaviour wise and money management wise etc…etc. Then these Cinderella Children of the backwoods will be more akin not only to the life that will envelope their entire future, but their immediate kith and kin as well.

Finally the agenda at this point should not be to heap scorn upon them and make a joke of them as well as your good selves because like the athletes you too have a social and moral obligation while performing day to day duties. The sooner you recognize this imperative the faster will Sri Lanka transform these Cinderella Children into fully fledged sporting ambassadors.

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