• Raring to go
• Is our Olympic team to Sydney representative?
• The changing face of Australian sport 
• Hamstring injuries (Part IV) 
• Chronicling the Olympics (Part 4) - Countdown to the Olympics - 81 days (14)
• Test matches of by-gone days: Jessop's Match (9)

Raring to go

By Jatila Karawita.

Sri Lanka's rugby team comprising 25 strong players and led by lock Asoka Jayasena, was full of optimism of faring up to expectations, when they assembled last Wednesday night at the Rugby Football Headquarters, moments before they embarked on a two week tour of Japan, to scrum down in the Asian Rugby Football Championships which kicks off tomorrow.

Captain Jayasena airing his views on the Rugby Asiad to the Sunday Times, as his team prepared to head for the airport said, he was eagerly looking ahead for the challenge his side will face in Amori, Japan and he sounded positive of returning to the island, with at least the Plate trophy. "I feel we have a genuine chance of making an impact this time around as our opponents will be China, Thailand and Singapore.

Of the three countries Singapore will pose the biggest threat to us, as they have some good foreigners in their ranks.

But I can say we will be ready not only for them, but for the other two teams also," said lanky Jayasena, who did not fail to mention the efforts of team coach Nimal Lewke, who supervised the national squad for a period of one month, with intensive fitness and weight training, in addition to their normal gym training. 

Asked to mention any of his team members who had caught his attention, during the training period Jayasena was not keen to reveal individual names, as it will harm team morale and unity but said, each one chosen to the tour squad had given their best in the first round of the league tourney, and he was hopeful of them doing likewise for the country at the Asiad.

"Mentioning names is one thing which I do not like to do at this stage, but I can say for sure almost everyone who had made it to the final squad, I am sure had done so through merit and nothing else, and I want to thank the selectors and in particular Tikiri Marambe, for giving me such a wonderfully well balanced squad, to battle in Japan" said the Sri Lankan rugby skipper, who was impressed with the team unity shown hours before their take off to the land of the rising sun.

Asked whether there are any major injury worries, Asoka Jayasena with a satisfied look said, he feels glad that all the boys are free of injury and raring to go for the jugular at the Asiad and ultimately do the country proud.

The Sri Lanka Rugby Squad- Asoka Jayasena (Capt), Savantha De Saram,Champika Nishantha, Sanjeewa Jayasinghe, Nalin Dissanayake,Haren Perera, Nalaka Weerakkody, Sajith Mallikarachchi, Radhika Hettiarachchi, Asanga Rodrigo,Indrajith Bandranayake, Leonard De Zilwa,Ruwan Suranga, Kapila Knowlton, Dunstan De Silva, B. M. Dharmapala, Pradeep Basnayake, Suranga Amerasinghe, Anura Fernando, Mohammed Buksh, Thushara Jayalath, Viraj Prasantha, M. Madurasinghe, Haren Gabriel and H. Karunarathne.

Is our Olympic team to Sydney representative?

By Annesley Ferreira

At a recent ceremony, Dialog GSM, Sri Lanka's "premier digital cellular network" has come forward for the first time as a private sector initiative to be the principal sponsor of the proposed twenty-five member Sri Lanka contingent to the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. This contingent would include national teams in athletics, swimming and rifle shooting; media representatives and officials.

Honourable S. B. Dissanayake, Minister of Sports, is to have stated at this ceremony quote "we are sending the biggest squad for the first time to the Sydney Olympics." Unquote. It is being asked, in whose interest is this "biggest squad" selected? - is this representation? Certainly not through a tranparent, fair and equitable selection process conducted by the National Olympic Committee [NOC] through the recommendation of NSAs whose responsibility it would have been to set Olympic selection criteria. This has now been usurped by the MOS, as was the case in 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta and now for the 2000 Sydney Olympic games.

This newspaper and many intrepid sports scribes of other news media have cried foul at the audacious, greedy and arrogant selection of our mediocre Olympic teams since the 1972 Munich Olympic games, only to find the selections taking a more bizzare turn to enrich a select few who are to enjoy the lavish and presitigious participation. The previous week this column discussed the sad and sordid issue relating to the selection to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in arguing Conrad Francis' case. 

This week the selection to the 2000 Sydney Olympics is revisited to illustrate as to how the MOS has taken control of the selection of our national contingent to these games. There is no issue on the selection of Susanthika Jayasinghe, Damayanthi Darsha, Sriyani Kulawansa, Sugath Tilekeratne and perhaps - a long shot at the 4 x 400 relay for it to be in the semi-finals, a commendable achievement if this will ever be possible. The effort is supported for the sake of the relay foursome. There is only a slim outside chance if anyone of these athletes would even enter the semi-finals, the final 16 runners. The recent performances of the would-be gold medalist say it all.

But in the case of rifle shooting - indeed a hopeless situation and the records are replete with results that this discipline has no chance whatsoever at Olympic level - a chance that this sport can come among the 35-40 th places - would be fortunate if they could come within 40-50 places as our rifle shooters would be hopelessly outclassed at the Olympics. The results of the past three Olympiads would attest this statement. 

The most bizzare selection is in swimming. Here is a case that powers that be have flexed their muscle to include a swimmer who would have never qualified if not for the "name". If this swimmer is so superior in the 100 meters free-style then why not take a shot at the 50 meters free-style event. Surely if the selectee could swim the 100 meters free-style - the 50 meters, which has no turn, could swim equally well or better. Under normal conditions the same swimmer wins both super sprints - should a separation occur it would be at 1/1,000th of-a-second. But the fact is that there is a superior swimmer in the 50 meters free-style. A trial denied or not held since selection has been decided on the performance of the 100 meters free-style. Since the powers that be are so close to the better powers - the trial was fixed only for the 100 free-style by assigning prejudicial points system 100 th free, downgrading the other three disciplines of swimming and did away with the 50 free-style. What would be the feeling of the superior swimmer of the 50 meters free-style when this swimmer knows the trial was fixed for selection of their choice. The point is that fairness and transparency was not available to all swimmers who participated in the trials, including the 50 meters free and Conrad Francis.

The case of Conrad Francis who won a scholorship to Australia, not given a chance for selection simply because he could not make it to the trials is yet another fix - by the NOC Secretary who knows nothing about swimming for him to act so brazenly. 

Was Francis informed of the trials? Did, either the NAASU or the NOC make an attempt to get Francis down for a trail? Instead an irresponsible NOC Secretary arbitrarily rejected Francis. The NOC Secretary alone nailed the fate of young Conrad Francis who would have easily sought selection as he was clearly a superior swimmer. The argument here is not that he would beat Ian Thorpe of Australia, but deserves inclusion in this biased national team that is to represent Sri Lanka at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

How can Conrad make representation for justice, leave alone selection? Look at what is stacked against him in case he makes an appeal for selection and representation to the 2000 Sydney Olympic games. 

Let's start with the Ministry of Sports:

The honourable Minister's Coordinating Secretary is the President of the Amateur Athletic Association [AAA] of Sri Lanka. He is also a professional track and field coach, currently the coach of "sprint queen" Damayanthi Darsha and the 400 meter hurdler 22-year-old Asoka Jayasundera. The minister's coordinating secretary is also the AAA representive to the National Olympic Committee [NOC] of Sri Lanka. Hurdler Jayasundera was banned for two years for having taking performance enhancing drugs, testing positive in Kathmandu at the South Asian Federation [SAF] games. When such a ban is imposed on the athlete, the coach also receives the same punishment. The special committee did not recommend such an action to the AAA.

Contd. next week

The changing face of Australian sport

By Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha

The list of Australian medal winners at the early Olympic Games a century ago could easily be mistaken for just another team from the British isles. In fact, the Australians those days considered themselves so much of an extension of Britain that, when they lacked the numbers to participate in some of the team events, they even joined up with the Brits to form a team. Stan Rowely, for example, won one of his three bronze medals at the 1900 Paris Olympics as a member of the British 5000 meter team! 

Even the first swimmers from Australia to win medals at the 1912 Stockholm Games, Cecil Healy and Harry Hardwick among the men and Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie for the women, were all WASP's - exclusively white, essentially Anglo-Saxon and predominantly Protestant.

Throughout the past 100 years, during which Australia has competed in every single Olympic Games held, the sportsmen and women who have won a total of 62 individual gold medals for this nation have all been white.

But as multicultural immigration gradually blurs the nation's ethnic make-up (a recent Monash University study showed that the Anglo Celtic population has fallen from 90% just after World War II to 70% in 1999) the make-up of Australian sports teams has also changed.

This year's Australian Olympic team boast not only 'traditionally' Aussie names such as Thorpe, O'Neil and Perkins; it also has sportsmen and women with names like Olevsky, Gregorieva, Kounev, Van Heer and Kneebone.

Says Melbourne born and bred Peter Papalezarou, an undergrad whose parents migrated here from Greece thirty years ago, "It is only recently that our sports teams have begun to reflect the cultural diversity that makes up today's Australian population."

Projection for the future indicate that if recent immigration trends continue, in another thirty five years the Anglo Celtic share will fall to 62%.

With Sydney hosting the Olympics this year, there is a lot of pressure for the home team to perform well. Australians have traditionally done well at sport - last year winning no less than four world championships (the rugby and cricket world cups, the Davis Cup for tennis and the world netball championships) plus innumerable individual athletics and swimming gold medals.

Among those picked for the 2000 Games so far is Bulgarian born weightlifter Kiril Kounev. Kounev has competed for Australia for the past ten years, winning six gold medals at the last two Commonwealth Games and narrowly missing bronze at the Atlanta Olympics. He makes use of his Bulgarian contracts to spend time doing part of his training in that country, long regarded as a powerhouse of weightlifting.

Also originally from behind the Iron Curtain is Irena Olevsky, who with Naomi Young makes up a highly rated Synchronised Swimming team. Silver medal lists at the last Commonwealth games, they probably train harder than the traditional swimmers - spending nearly six hours in the water each day in addition to their weight training and land drills. Russian born Olevsky now lives in Melbourne while Young comes from Sydney. One routine they are practising for the Olympics will be performed in sparkling gold and green costumes and set to a medley of Australian folk songs - which no doubt will inspire a patriotic crowd to cheer them on!

Certainly one of the most pleasing sights at the Sydney Olympics will be the participation of indigenous Australians. Until 1967 denied the basic right of citizenship in the country in which their ancestors had lived for over 40,000 years, Australian Aborigines will be conspicuous by their presence at the 2000 Games. Nova Peris Kneebone was the first Aboriginal athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics as a member of Australia's 1996 hockey team. Switching from hockey to athletics after the Atlanta Games she struck gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games as a member of the 100 meters relay team. Whether she will be able to repeat her gold medal performance at the Sydney Olympics remains to be seen but she is already recognized as a leader in her community.

Probably the most high profile Aboriginal athlete today is 400 metre runner Cathy Freeman, silver medalist at Atlanta and winner of this event at the last two world championships. Freeman, 26, first hit the headlines at the 1994 Commonwealth Games when, after winning the 400 meters gold medal, she ran a victory lap draped in the red black and yellow aboriginal flag. Among the most eagerly awaited contests at the Sydney games will be that between home grown heroine Freeman (the first Aborigine to run for her country at the Olympics) and Marie Jose Perec, the French woman who beat her for the gold medal at Atlanta.

Another Aboriginal athlete vying for selection at the Olympic trials in August will be Patrick Johnson from the Umpila tribe of north Queensland. Raised on his dad's fishing boat in Cairns, he went on to university where he studied politics and Asian studies before getting a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Described by sports writer Ron Reed as "the fastest man in Australia this year", Johnson is training six hours a day at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra to make the Olympic team.

Add to this lot two Russian born pole vaultes (Dmitri Markov and Tratiana Grigorieva, silver and bronze medallists at the world championships held in Seville last year), one Sri Lankan born sprinter (Tanya Van Heer, a gold medallist at the 1998 Commonwealth Games who migrated to Adelaide in her teens), and one Italian speaking marathon runner Silvana Trampuz - and you have a multicultural, multilingual, multicoloured Australian team.

But all this multiculturalism doesn't sit well with everybody. 1998 Commonwealth games marathon gold medallist Heather Turland gave vent to her feeling on TV's Today show when she objected to Trampuz being selected for the Olympic team. "Just because Trampuz holds an Australian passport and was born in Australia, then she is allowed to run for Australia. That is the legal side of it but certainly ethically I don't know that Australian people agree with that."

Turland's attack may have been motivated by the fact that she failed to qualify for the Olympic team at the world athletic championships in August last year, while Trampuz (who was living in Italy at the time) easily met the qualifying mark in the event. Turland struggled in that race and pulled out after 25km. But in her TV interview she made the point that "this is really about Australians running for Australia - and I guess that's what the Australian people want."

This obviously begs the question "Who is an Australian?"

The fact is that today, people like Trampuz, Gregorieva, Van Heer and Cathy Freeman are all as Australian as Turland and her ilk. Uniting all this sporting talent under the Australian flag can only augur well for the nation in its quest for Olympic glory.

In 1956, when Australia last staged the Games, the final runner in the Olympic torch relay who brought the torch into the Melbourne stadium and lit the Olympic flame was a young (white) man Ron Clarke, who went on to become one of the greatest distance runners Australia produced. Significantly for the 2000 Olympics, the first Australian to run with the torch after it landed on Australian soil this month was a young (black) woman - Nova Peris Kneebone, the first Aboriginal to win an Olympic gold medal. Just another symbolic reminder that the torch has now been handed over to a new generation of Australians.

Contd. next week

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