• Congrats Aravinda !
• Raw talent
• Asian Test C'ship in the balance
• POW poised for the kill
• Titles for Bens and Hindu
• Squash titles for Hirantha, Kushani
• NCC on target for a win
• Large contingent for Asian Games
• Taylor's sacrificial decision
• Love-all to Daddy
• Another basketball
• Moore Shield for Park SC, Matale
• The Press, Cricket Board and Selectors
• Murali, the magician

Congrats Aravinda !

Sri Lanka's deputy skipper Aravinda de Silva got engaged to Sarita (above) before leaving for Bangladesh to take part in the Mini World Cup. Sarita is the daughter of Ranjan Rajendran, now a resident in New Delhi, and Christine Tambimuttu. We wish them well!

Raw talent....

Are school athletic standards dropping ?

By Channaka de Silva

Sports, as we know, is a great leveller. Athletics, specially schools athletics, provide ample testimony to this. If you go through the results sheet of any major schools athletic meet held lately, you will find that most of the winners or the record holders come from the outstations while some of the schools on the winning list are simply unheard of.

The reason most probably is the low cost of the sport and ability to indulge in it with a minimum of equipment or other facilities. Raw talent, most of the time, is more than sufficient to get the better of techniques. Well, this is at the school level of Sri Lankan athletics and does not apply to any other area of sports.

The Public Schools Athletics meet, most renowned as the John Tarbat Meet which was held for the 65th time during the last week, also saw many of the rural school boys and girls outshining their opponents from the more privileged schools from Colombo and other major cities.

The most outstanding among them was undoubtedly a 17-year-old schoolboy from the war-torn Manampitiya hamlet lying on the border of the Eastern Province.

For H.M. Gayan Sameera of Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya of Manampitiya, Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo would have been a lot less awesome experience than the day-to-day life lived with constant fear in a tense area where the sound of gun-fire is a regular feature.

But the feeling when competing for the first time at a big stadium on a big occasion is difficult to cope with for many. But Sameera simply refused to be overawed by the atmosphere.

He not only won the event - Under 18 Triple Jump, but also created a new record for good measure. His jump of 14.61 metres in the Under 18 age group also signalled a victorious first appearance for his school, which had never fielded an athlete before for the meet.

When you know that it is the Public Schools meet, you obviously expect an event with a very high standard, which reflects the best level of the sport in the country.

According to knowledgeable experts, the meet unfortunately failed to live up to the expected standards.

The spectator stands were empty and the number of competitors looked paltry.

Many including the leading newspapers put the blame on the organisers - the Schools Athletic Association. G.R. Dhanapala, Secretary of the meet refuted the charges.

"Those reports were wrong. I deny the claim that the standard of the meet has gone down. On the first two days itself there were 14 new records. So, how can you say that there is a dropping of the standard ?" he asked.

Well, a record is a record and it depicts the best standard achieved by a particular age group during the history of the meet.

Impressed

Another school to impress with records was A. Ratnayake M.M.V. Walala. The school which is hardly known produced two record holders at the meet.

N.B.N.G. Rajasekara and N.G.D.T.D. Wimalasena from the school established two records in the 800 metres for Girls under 18 and 16 respectively.

Dhanapala also pointed out the participation of several new schools at the meet as another plus factor for the success of the meet. Kalpitiya Kandakuliya Sinhala MV, Manampitiya Sinhala MV, Royal, Polonnaruwa were some of the schools which took part for the first time in the history of the games and also won events at this year's meet.

Another newspaper highlighted the scheduling of the meet for three week-days which prevented a large number of athletes who could only have come on a weekend.

Dhanapala said that the Sugathadasa stadium was fully booked for the future weekends during the year. "Next week there is the Track Masters meet, then the following week the Nationals are on, then it will be the SAF championships. We would not be able to conduct the meet till next year if we did not have it this week. We did not want to have it anywhere else because on a grass track achieving colours standards is difficult. Public Schools colours are so important. We did not want to deprive the kids of that", Dhanapala explained.

There were only a few athletes around the stadium. That was clearly visible which may have pointed to a drop in standards. "Athletes come only at the specific times of their events. All athletes are not at the stadium all the time." Dhanapala said.

But according to some officials whom the "Sunday Times" talked to, there was a drop in the number of participants. Some events for which finalists were to be decided on heats, were run as straight finals as there were only four or five competitors present.

Dhanapala said the scheduling of the meet, after the National School's Games which were held just three weeks ago, was reason for the absence of some athletes. "They (athletes) gauged their standards and their chances of winning at the School Games. So, if they knew they had no good chance of winning at this meet, they could simply skip this meet".

If what Dhanapala said was true, there is a serious problem of sportsmanship among our school children, which is not a good indication of the country's future, because they are the next generation due to take over the country.

The John Tarbat meet is usually held before the Schools Games but this year, the Education Ministry repeatedly changed the schedule of the Schools games putting the Association into a big difficulty, according to Dhanapala. "They (Ministry) first wanted us to bring the meet forward and then backward and then forward again as they could not decide when to have the National School's Games" he said.

The meet has always employed volunteer officers and this time it had been no different according to Dhanapala who said it did not affect much and said there were enough officials to carry out duties. "They are doing an honorary job but they are dedicated unlike how some newspapers portrayed them to be," he said.

Dhanapala who had been involved in the organisation of many of the meets since late said that the number of spectators was always less for the meet. He said the disappointing attendance was not a reflection of the success of the meet.

A veteran athlete who spoke to "The Sunday Times" said however that the Games have gone down in standard and hence had subsequently resulted in the drop in the attendance.

"Those days, this was the most famous schools sports event. I could remember the magnitude to which it reached those days when it was held at the Oval. People had to buy tickets to enter the stadium." But for those who were present at the stadium during the past week, it could have been a far cry from what they experienced in those golden days.

Atmosphere

The Sunday Times spotted Sunil Gunawardene training his athletes at the stadium. Gunawardene whose record of 10.9 seconds in the 100 metres dash for boys under 20 still stands after 30 years, must have experienced a whole lot of a difference in the atmosphere when he set that record in 1968.

Glamour of the Games may have gone, but there were still some athletes who added status to the Games. Peterite Ranga Wimalawansa and Visakhian Anoma Suriarachchi were two such athletes.

Both of them are in the National pool and are top class competitors. Their participation underlined the fact that the Games are still a hunting ground for talented performers.

By the second day of competition, Suriarachchi had won the Long Jump and 200 metres for Girls Under-20, while Wimalawansa was the clear favourite for the Under-20 Boys 400 metre event.

Views from different sections presented food for thought to the authorities and it is their duty to see that that the Sir John Tarbat Meet is established in its due place. This is the cradle which nurtures athletes for the future and there is little doubt that the future of Sri Lankan athletics would be bleak if the Games continue to see a drop in standards.

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