Lankans far behind even in the corner lane
Although Sri Lanka met its major goals for the FINA World Championships, with swimmers improving their timings and strengthening ties with the international swimming community, the country is still a fair distance away from registering podium finishes on the Asian and world circuit, the team’s coach Julian Bolling revealed.
Julian Bolling stresses a point. Pic by Hasitha Kulasekara
“It was a nice coming-together. But we’ve got to realise our top competition in swimming is at the South Asian level. We still can’t even get into the Asian level. In most of the finals at the World Championships there were three Asians. Two Chinese and a Japanese or two Japanese and a Chinese. So to medal at the Asian Games you should be able to get into an Olympic or World Championship finals. So we have got to get things into perspective,” Bolling asserted.
During the top international swim meet, Sri Lanka’s Heshan Unamboowe and Kimiko Raheem recorded personal bests in the 200 meter backstroke and the 50 meter backstroke respectively, cutting sizable chunks from their previous times.
However, Bolling stressed that in order for Sri Lanka’s swimming to progress significantly, a well-structured and far-reaching long-term development scheme had to be instituted throughout the country.
“I think it has to be a three-pronged approach. One is to take swimming to the districts because the district kid cannot swim because it costs too much to come to Colombo. If we have district-level meets and build a structure you will see our swimming population explode,” he said.
“Secondly, we need to look at the education of our coaches; they need to know the science of swimming. Thirdly, our top-end swimmers need support to travel abroad. During this World Championships, FINA gave us sponsorship. But last year we went for the Asian Championships and all 12 of them (participating swimmers) paid from their pocket to go for the trip. I checked and even the Palestinian team does not have to fund their foreign trips.”
The triple Olympian lamented that with such practices prevailing, he was sad to note that the general standard of national swimming has regressed from what was a promising period for the sport during his days in the pool. He hopes that a request by the Sports Minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, for a proper development plan for Lankan swimming will serve as a vital first step to prevent it withering any further.
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