Sports

Sports

Another nail in the coffin
S.R. Pathiravithana
As Sri Lankans who have travelled abroad, we know the travails that we have to experience at foreign airports at times—leave that alone, even at foreign missions that are in Sri Lanka and the degrading that we face like when we have to get ourselves fingerprinted just to get their nod of okay.
What has brought this situation upon us? It is nobody but ourselves who have to be blamed. During the past two and half decades or so, a section of the people of this country have entered foreign countries in various devious ways and brought upon a degenerating effect on all Sri Lankans who wish to go abroad for some reason or the other.

It was only last week that the sports fraternity in Sri Lanka learned of the revolting news of the defection of three athletes who opted to take the plunge into the Korean slums, rather than being treated like humans and sports ambassadors with full honours. First it was W.V.S. Ravindra Kumara (100metre hurdles) who gave the slip followed by Kumara Silva and Suminda Mendis, (both 4x100 runners) the next day.Then just imagine the plight of the others. Subsequent to the defection another twelve athletes who went out shopping were flanked by 37 policemen during their outing and the whole contingent was advised not to step out without Police escort anywhere outside.

That was bad enough. On the last three days Sri Lankans who had already put their foot in their mouths even without facing the starter had some respite when they hauled up some medals to finish sixth out of 43 countries including a gold for Damayanthi Dharsha’s 200metre effort. Well done! the whole of Sri Lanka is proud of your achievements.

But, what was her next step? The old baloney surfaced. With her gold she greeted the athletic officialdom with a tirade of criticism. Without blaming her three fellow athletes who even put all of them into disgrace and brought them to a state of almost house arrest she opted to go the other way. She blamed the officials for the economic hardships that the athletes were going through, saying that whatever the honours brought by them to the country they went unheeded by the athletic officialdom and this may have prompted the said athletes to resort to this type of action.

Then comes the next question? If this is the prevailing state of affairs why didn’t the entire contingent decamp?

The Sunday Musings asked senior vice president of the AAA – Sunil Jayaweera for their opinion on this matter. He said “How can they blame the AAA? Their first accusation is that their achievements go unheeded with us. What they mean by that is that we do not give any monetary or material rewards to them upon their achievements. Yes, I admit at one stage when S.B. Dissanayake was the Minister of Sports he made these gestures. But, those came from the state coffers with no burden to the AAA. The AAA does not have that kind of money to dole out. On the other hand when these athletes take part in the Grand Prix events they get prize money. They do not give a portion of their winnings to the governing body in spite of the governing body footing the bill for their travel and accommodation! On the other hand sportswomen like the netballers went out and won the Asian championships. Did they get any emoluments from the federation? No. Did they start grumbling and blaming the officials because of that? No.”

Jayaweera continued “The only true professional sport in Sri Lanka is cricket. Cricketers do get paid for their achievements but that happens under a different structure. Another point they have raised is that the differences among the athletic officials may have brought upon this situation. I ask you what the athlete has got to do with the differences of officials. Even in cricketing circles there are differences among the administrators, but the cricketers are unperturbed by that and go on with their day to day business and keep on accumulating accolades for their country. What has happened here is that athletes have also got involved in politics and are in different camps, so they want the AAA to run according to be their own whims and fancies.

This is the bane of the state of affairs of athletics in this country”.
In ‘Musings’ own eyes, there are many facets to this present state of affairs. Number one is that the coaches have got involved in the administration and likewise the athletes who train under these coaches get into their respective camps. On the other hand the officialdom also must take a part of the blame. When they keep on selecting athletes in the caliber of Rohan Pradeep Kumara who has been embroiled in so many misdeeds the lesser athletes also think they too can get away with anything and try to emulate their ‘track heroes’.

Another salient point is that just prior to the tour, four top coaches did a last minute pull out maybe with the idea that their contributions were indispensable and the result of the pullout would be a drastic one. Alas! Even without their presence on the spot the athletes won medals and also took the sixth place out of 43 participating countries. What does this mean? We at this end feel that on tour the contingent should be lean and mean. A small contingent of officials will know exactly what their responsibilities are and do their part without waiting for the head to expect the tail to do the wagging.

Top