Learning from the Finnish experience

Sri Lanka athletes painted a poor picture at the 10th IAAF World Championships concluded in Helsinki, Finland. It was a grand treat of exciting track and field action as the cream of world's superstars clashed for honours.

True that there were no big names like Michael Johnson, Marion Jones, Maurice Greene or Gail Devers. Yet, the American young brigade filled the vacuum to outshine their archrivals Russia. The US track and field team bagged 14 gold medals while Russia managed just half of it.

The most notable at the 198-nation world athletic extravaganza was the superlative display given by the US young brigade, who did not let the spectators feel the absence of the stars of yesteryear. The USA has always maintained their track and field supremacy and the key to their consistency has been proper planning with a vision for the future.

While their big names like Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith Joyner, Michael Johnson and Gail Devers went on to win back to back gold medals at the top most level, the Americans had a continuous program to groom their emerging young athletes at junior, intermediate and development pool level.

That has always been the key to success, be it in athletics or any other sport for that matter. When nine-time Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis hung his spikes up, there came Maurice Greene to take over the sprint crown. From Greene, its young Justin Gatlin, who completed that grand sprint double in Helsinki.

Then there was Jeremy Wariner to take over the responsibility of retaining the men's 400m gold medals won by the track king Michael Johnson. It has been similar in women's circuit. The crown for the fastest woman at world-class meets changed from Joyner to Devers, then to Marion Jones and to Kellie White and Allyson Felix.

Even when one considers age of the US gold medallists, it has been their youngsters who have led from front. Gold medallists for the USA such as Jeremy Wariner (men's 400m - 21 years), Allyson Felix (women's 200m - 19 years), Justin Gatlin (men's 100m & 200m - 23 years), Michelle Perry (women's 100m hurdles - 26 years), Tania Madison (women's long jump - 20 years) and Bershawn Jackson (men's 400m hurdles - 22 years), all have been in their ripe age to win medals in the big league. All of them have a bright future ahead as they are quite young, compared with their achievements.

This is the best lesson that one can get from the Americans, the right way of handling things with a vision. But we are not asking our own athletic administrators to handle things similarly. We are well aware of the fact that we cannot compare it with Sri Lanka athletics. But we can at least take a simple example from that and work on a small program, which fits our limited financial resources.

We are not asking to produce another Susanthika Jayasinghe or Damayanthi Darsha by the time they retire. But surely, we could groom an athlete or two who could come somewhere closer. Sadly, that has not been happening. Since hurdler Sriyani Kulawansa called it a day last year, there has not been anyone who is performing anywhere near those timings. As it is, we cannot see someone breaking Kulawansa's women's 100m hurdles record within the next few years or even beyond.

The three athletes who represented Sri Lanka in Helsinki were completely off colour. Sprinter Prasanna Amarasekera failed to justify his presence as an 'A' grade qualification, falling out in the men's 400m first round.

Then our US-trained long jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekera could not come anywhere close to his season's best 2.25m or personal best 2..27, in making a qualification round exit with only 2.15m. Anuradha Indrajith Cooray only lasted until the midway of the men's marathon before withdrawing due to cramps. There could be enough and more excuse from our athletes, their coaches, officials and administrators. But they should have at least come closer to their personal best achievements; forget about Sri Lanka records in those events.

Our athletic officials take the gold medal in making huge promises. But they are poor losers in putting those numerous promises into action. Most of them play to the gallery and are only keen to get positions with loads of promises. But they cut a sorry figure when it comes to action and fail to go beyond the first round. Some even 'change lanes' once they get elected and deny that they never made such promises before the AGMs.

It's high time that all those who are genuinely interested in developing athletics, iron out their differences and make a national athletic policy with a vision for future, so that change of administrators would not affect the development process and plans.