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Sports

The backwards marathon
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Oh! When will they ever learn? At present in Sri Lanka our athletics is taking part in a marathon. Ironically this is a marathon that is being run backwards which leads into a huge bottomless abyss. At the speed that they are running at present they may reach their goal pretty soon!

Little did the three young athletes know --- K.T.M. Harris from St. Joseph’s College Trincomalee ( boys 100 and 200metres), Uditha Gayan Wickremasinghe from St.Anthony’s College, Katugastota (boys 400metres), Lahiruni Peiris from Devi Balika Vidyalaya ( Girls high jump), that they were embroiled in a package of master bungling and not heading towards Morocco to take part in the World Youth Championships.

The story is hilarious!!! But, for the three kids who missed a golden opportunity to take part in an international meet it would have been a heartbreaking as well as a traumatic experience. This episode covers enactments between two AAA officials fighting for ticketing rights, a coach trying out her luck at the expense of an athlete and then the bungling by the secretary of the ministry of sport. In Sinhala they call this a “Hathara Beeri Kathawa”.

Episode one began on May 26 in the year 2005 when Harris and Wickremasinghe were selected as the original participants of the meet and this situation continued till the Junior Nationals were held and young Lahiruni Peiris equalled the existing Sri Lanka High Jump record. At this is point the cookie started crumbling. The achievement was great, but the upshot was rather ironic.

When Lahiruni won the event understandably the most excited was her coach Delima Peterson. Then they thought as to why Lahiruni should not be included in the contingent to Morrocco. So the visits to the ministry of sports began and the next actor in the comedy of errors – was Sports Ministry secretary Rannuge.

Then the athletic governing body gets the order to include Lahiruni Peiris in the contingent to Morrocco. But the AAA had received expenses for only two athletes and a coach. Meanwhile a PTI from Kandy by the name of Keerthi Abeywickrema had been named as coach cum manager of the contingent, while Harris’ coach Wijeneelan from Trincomalee had already paid his expenses and only sought approval for his travel with the contingent.

At the next turn-off, the ministry came out with another ruling that if a female athlete is taking part a female should accompany Lahiruni. Then there came a question mark over the approval of Abeywickrema’s name. Somehow the name of Ms Peterson came up as the next player in the Morrocco melee.

Now the problem was who was going to bell the cat? Who was going to foot the bill for the expenses for the additional tour party of two? Time was ticking and there were various verbal promises from the ministry of monetary backing for the late comers, but nothing was put down in writing. The contingent was scheduled to leave on the 12th of July in the year 2005. At this point the behind-the-scene acts were peaking high.

At the same time within the precincts of the AAA two officials were interested in booking the tickets for the contingent. One wanted to go with Classic Travels and other had different ideas, till the president of the AAA, Minister Janaka Bandara Tennekoon prevailed upon them and stated it is the Ex-co treasurer H.W. Nimalasiri who is to handle the tickets. This was another delaying factor.

However on Friday July 8 the final approval from the Ministry came, giving the green light to all three coaches – Abeywickrema, Peterson and Wijeneelan. Meanwhile Classic tours had cancelled the Morocco bookings. With 9 and 10 July being Saturday and Sunday only the 11th was remaining and the contingent was to leave on twelfth night.

Hardly any time remaining. At the eleventh hour Hemas Tours tried valiantly, but could get tickets only up to a middle east destination, as there were no connecting flights to Morocco. So such was the way in which the cookie crumbled, and the backwards marathon speeded up.

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