Diack’s visit should open new era in Lankan athletics

The President of the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) Lamine Diack concluded a successful tour of Sri Lanka, opening a new era in local track and field. Interestingly, it coincided with Sri Lanka’s teenage sensation Shehan Ambepitiya winning three gold medals at the recently concluded Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India.

Diack became the first IAAF President to tour Sri Lanka and it opened a new chapter in local athletics. Many doubted when we exclusively broke the new of his proposed tour about a month ago. They too had plenty of reasons to do so as Sri Lanka is not a big time athletic nation against the 213 IAAF member countries. But the 75-year-old Senegalese thought otherwise.

He thought he should honour his long-standing athletic friends here and also wanted to inspire our athletes as an emerging force in World track and field.

Diack was the Senior Vice President of the IAAF when President Mahinda Rajapaksa headed the local athletic body - the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) in 1997.

That was the year which opened the ‘summer of Sri Lanka athletics’ with Susanthika Jayasinghe winning the country’s first ever IAAF World Championship medal (silver) and went on to win Sri Lanka’s first ever Olympic medal in 52 years at the Sydney 2000 Games. In 1998, Sri Lanka won its first ever Asian Games gold medal (in fact three) in 24 years and on the following year Sri Lanka bagged two gold medals at the Asian Championship in Fukuoka.

Hence, Diack was a happy man to see former Sri Lanka athletic chief becoming the President of the country. In fact, he commended the role played by President Rajapaksa to promote sports, particularly athletics.

The World athletic chief said he is happy to see an ex-President of an IAAF member federation becoming a Head of State.

More importantly, Diack has pledged support for Sri Lanka’s second international athletic stadium in Diyagama. Ever since the construction of Sri Lanka’s first ever artificial athletic track at Sugathadasa Stadium in 1991, we had just one such track for all top athletes in the country to train. But thanks to the untiring efforts of the AASL President Major General Palitha Fernando, Sri Lanka will get its second international class running track.

The AASL’s decision to construct the new stadium outside Colombo is a sensible one. At present, all national athletes will have to come to Colombo at the Sugathadasa Stadium. But the new stadium at Diyagama, just five kilometers off Kottawa, is an ideal location for elite athletes to train away from busy atmosphere in the capital.

What is important is a collective effort to get this project going and to complete the stage one at least by early next year. Major General Fernando, the architect of the concept of having another international athletic stadium outside the city, is hopeful that the laying of the running track and the junior stadium would be completed by early next year.

It is the duty of all sports loving people, especially the officials, to make a collective effort to make this huge project a success. We have often seen some athletic officials clamouring for positions and personal glory. Club politics and personal differences have been ruining our athletics, or the entire Sri Lanka sport for that matter.

But now, it’s the duty of all who love track and field to iron out all differences and work for the common goal. The AASL President is making a genuine effort to put the house in order and resurrect Sri Lanka athletics. He needs the support of everybody to take Sri Lanka athletics to greater heights.

The future of Sri Lanka athletics looked somewhat gloomy as we have failed to find equally good replacements for top athletes such as Sriyani Kulawansa and Damayanthi Darsha who have retired. But all of a sudden we show a bright star shining in Shehan Ambepitiya who bagged gold medals in Boys 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m at the recent Commonwealth Youth Games in India.

The visit of the IAAF President and Ambepitiya’s golden triple should be the beginning of another new era in local athletics. The two events should be an inspiration to all and should lead to the beginning of a new chapter in the annals of Sri Lanka athletics.

At a time Sri Lanka has been struggling to find quality sprinters to maintain its short distance supremacy in the South Asian region, the emergence of Ambepitiya gives fresh hopes for Sri Lanka athletics. Top sprinters such as Sugath Tillakaratne and Rohan Pradeep Kumara have virtually come to the end of their distinguished sporting careers and it is important that we tap raw talent to prepare for the future.

But as I have stated in this column last week, it is a matter of how good we are going to invest on these youngsters. These emerging athletes should be carefully groomed.

This is where the Sports Ministry should play a crucial role. Without putting the burden on the AASL entirely, the Sports Ministry should immediately draw a plan to look after these athletes and strengthening AASL’s junior development programmes.

There is plenty of hidden talent in the provinces and all what we need is a solid programmes to identify them and look after those uncut gems. Unless we make a serious investment for the future, we cannot expect medals at the 2010 Asian Games in China.

It is high time the Sports Ministry form on an Olympic Super pool and focus on the 2012 or 2016 Olympic Games, at least to produce an Olympic medallist within the next eight years. It will not be an uphill task if we act promptly and look after our talented athletes with a vision.

Selecting makeshift teams at the eleventh hour is not going to do any good and a solid development programme with a vision is a must, if we are to produce medallists at international level.