 Eleven years ago, Manju Wanniarachchi was a lost soul. It was the 8th SAF Games, and Manju had lost the Bantamweight final on the count, that he felt something was woefully wrong, as not only he, but the people gathered by the ring knew that it was a false call.
Nevertheless, at the same instance, the assuring hand of mentor Dion Gomes was on Manju’s shoulder, telling him that it was not the end of the world, and the fight must go on.
Right now, Manju and Sri Lanka Boxing are on a huge high. Manju’s fight, weighted by Dion’s assuring hand, went on, and the ultimate winner was mother Lanka who crested herself with another Commonwealth Boxing gold, incidentally, after a 72-year wait.
We Lankans at this end, feel that, while the Commonwealth organizers decorated the boxer from the hill country, it must give a bigger medal to Dion Gomes for the effort he put in bringing this honour to this tiny island nation.
Boxing was always a corner bench sport in Sri Lanka, with some merited individuals wining the odd tournament abroad. That is why the Lankans had to wait from legendary Barney who did it in 1938, to Manju, who traveled the same road in 2010, to repeat it.
Today, Boxing has direction. Dion himself a Junior National Champion, is a boxing fanatic and, at the same time, is selflessly bent on helping the sport he loves. At the same time, he was the right guy at the right place at the right time. Dion’s employers, Slimline were ever willing to back his vision for Boxing, and gave him a free hand to pursue his vision.
Hence, he was able to take Boxing as his personal crusade, nurturing it selflessly and producing results. Maybe, next would be an Olympic medal.
Today, though he is not the president of the ABA, in keeping with his democratic vision, he has chosen to be an advisor, thus Dion personifies Sri Lanka Boxing. As and when Dion should ‘throw in the towel’, the sport will be back to the stone ages.
Then, as a nation, what have we done for this sport? Nothing. It is only one man’s dedication and commitment that has taken us thus far. In short, the sport has no sustainable programme for it to continue at this frequency.
Maybe, if we could train some professional boxers and the sport turns out to be a billion dollar earner, then there may be street fights, mafia style, to get a hold of a piece of the cake.The other day, we were in conversation with a Table Tennis veteran -- another sport that Sri Lanka could excel in. But ironically, no one is interested in it, and it has become a free loaders’ paradise, while the real people who know the game are mere onlookers.
Badminton, another game played in the country from grassroot level is on a nose dive. Why, because the game has no sustainable platform and it has become a ministerial “yes sir” colony.
These two games are crying for someone as benevolent as Gomes, to guide their sport, so that the Lankans could show what they are capable of in these two disciplines.
During the tenure of President Premadasa, officials of the caliber of Sunil Jayaweera etc set up a programme and brought the National Schools Games onto a pedestal. The result was a huge resurgence of athletics in this country. This machine kept producing athletes by the number, and when the next regime came to power a few years later, the then sports minister S.B. Dissanayake continued the sustenance of that scheme and it continued to bear fruit. But today, it is a completely different story.
For instance, there was a time, when Rugby held its own and ran on its own platform. But, it all turned on its head the day that CR and FC and Malik Samarawickrema parted company.
Samarawickrema switched his allegiance to Kandy SC and transformed it into a giant. The Colombo Clubs began to fall one-by-one, so much so that, once triple champions Havelocks SC are today struggling for survival. This scenario also led the game astray, and left room for the dreaded politico to set in and cast his ‘Sports Law’ spell over it.
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| Right now, Manju and Sri Lanka Boxing are on a huge high. Manju’s fight, weighted by Dion’s assuring hand, went on, and the ultimate winner was mother Lanka who crested herself with another Commonwealth Boxing gold, incidentally, after a 72-year wait. -- Dion Gomes |
Today, Rugby is pedestrian in Sri Lanka. Nobody wants even to watch a club match like the legendary CR-Havies affair, which was the social pinnacle in the city of Colombo 25-years-ago.
Though not the national sport, Cricket is a way of life, if not a religion, in Sri Lanka, and that alone helped the game convert itself to a sustainable democratic force in Sri Lanka. Talent was oozing in abundance, because people took the game seriously, in spite of Sri Lanka not being a full member of the main body for a long-long time.
In 1982, Sri Lanka was made a full member of the ICC, and in just 14 years Sri Lanka became the youngest nation to hold aloft Cricket’s World Cup. Why, once again, in spite of foreign teams not being interested in a fledgling nation embroiled in a war that was often fought in the main alleys of Colombo, the game kept on growing, because the school and club structured game was so strong in the country.
However, things begun to go wrong for Lankan cricket the day the two strongest characters who invaded the game – one as a cricketer and the other as an administrator -- Arjuna Ranatunga and Thilanga Sumathipala decided to go their separate ways. The game wobbled under the strain, till the dreaded political machine looked at the issue through the even sinister ‘Sports Law’.
Initially, it looked a good bet, when the so called ‘interim system’ caved into the democratic system which had degraded into a laughing stock by that time. But, once the political animal got a taste of the bone and knew that this could be used as good bait for their own gain, the game was never the same again.
However, the crux of the narration is how genuine and sincere individual influence could make the difference in any sport, and what could be achieved.
Though small in size, Sri Lanka is naturally talented in whatever sport it engages in. Boxer Manju Wanniarachchi amply projected that fact in New Delhi last week. Now it is up to the political machine of this country to look into the matter seriously, and shed its narrow political vision to develop a sustainable structure that could nurture true local talent, to become more meaningful partners on the World Stage. Should you need help, there are enough Dion Gomes’ along the way who would love to give a helping hand – only if the programme is completely devoid of politics. |
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