Athletics, the darker side

Asian Games triple gold medallist Damayanthi Darsha broke her silence with an exposure of the pathetic situation in Sri Lanka athletics. This she did after a welcome return to the track after two years, winning the women's 200m gold medal at the recent Asian Championships in South Korea. Darsha, as we all know, is not an outspoken athlete and has often let her performance to do the talking.

The lass from Ampara, has been one of the most disciplined athletes that Sri Lanka has ever produced. When one combines her chievements as Sri Lanka's most successful athlete at Asian Games and her exemplary conduct both on and off the field, she could be rated probably the best ever overall athlete that Sri Lanka has produced.

She made a dream debut with a golden sprint double at the Vth South Asian Games in Colombo in 1991. Ever since she has been consistent with four medals in three successive Asian Games - 200m bronze in Hiroshima 1994, 200m & 400m gold medals in Bangkok 1998 and 400m gold at Busan 2002, apart from a bagful of medals she has won at South Asian and Asian championship level.

Over the years, she has never rushed to conclusions and has faced all the hardships and shortcomings with courage. Hence, when an athlete of her calibre talks with sense, it's worth investigating for the best interest of the sport. Having followed her great career for the last 15 years at almost every key medal-winning meet, we feel that Darsha exactly knows what she is talking about.

Darsha would have felt enough is enough before breaking her silence to come out with a strong attack on Sri Lankan athletic officials, who have hardly done anything to recognise the talents and achievements of our athletes. She said the accommodation the Sri Lanka team got in Incheon, paying the same rates as other participating teams who were in hotels, was easily the worst ever she has come across in her career.

She said though Sri Lankan athletic officials were in their numbers in South Korea, they virtually did nothing to look into the needs of the local team. She said the Thailand team refused such shabby treatment and checked in at a different hotel while Sri Lanka had no option but to suffer at a training centre, converted into a hostel for the championship.

According to Darsha, most unfortunate was that our athletic officials even did not have tahe guts to point those shortcomings to the Korean organisers. Instead, they have defended the organisers, who accommodated Sri Lanka and a couple of other teams at a makeshift hostel while all other teams had hotel accommodation.

Our athletes had to run in their first round heats in less than 24 hours on arrival in Incheon after some hectic 33-hour air travel from Colombo, thanks to a commission-minded 'cheap' executive of the AASL. We exposed his raw travel deal, worth nearly Rs. three million, in this column last week.

Then our national coach became a laughing stock after negative comments he was reported to have made to the media in a pre-championship interview. The veteran coach was reportedly quoted as saying that Sri Lankan athletes won't win any medals at the Asian Championships. But finally, he was made to eat his own words as Sri Lana ended sixth in the overall medals standings with two gold medals, two silvers and two bronze medals.

Perhaps, he may not be in a position to ascertain the standard of our Sri Lanka athletes, as not a single member of the 59-member national pool trains under him.

All Sri Lanka athletes who won medals at the Asian Championship, including the silver medal winning men's 4 x 400m relay team, are coached by former Asian Games gold medallist Sunil Gunawardena. The only exception was the two athletes training overseas - Manjula Kumara Wijesekera (USA) and Manura Lanka (Italy). But AASL officials thought that Gunawardena was not good enough to be included in the team.

In a way, one need not be surprised over the developments, considering the poor knowledge of some of our top athletic officials. One top official had been shocked to see the Helsinki Stadium and had inquired whether the track there was an 800m one.

When the issue of finances came for the Asian Championship, the same official has asked why can't Sri Lanka athletes skip the heats and run directly in the finals. As a cost cutting measure, he had also instructed to do all warm up of our athletes in Colombo and go straight to Incheon directly to run.

It won't be a surprise if he suggests to have a warm up track close to Katunayake airport, so that the athletes could warm up and take off, then run immediately after landing at the next ampionship destination. Very clever!