SAG Road Race silver medallist under fire for going against coach’s game plan
Sri Lanka had to settle for bronze medals in volleyball
The Cycling Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) has decided to launch an inquiry against Prabash Madushanka de Silva who won a silver medal in the cycling Road Race event at the 13th South Asian Games (SAG) following an adverse report lodged against him by national cycling coach Upali Rathnayake.
Madushanka had apparently gone against the coach’s game plan during the 100-kilometre road race which affected Sri Lanka’s chances of battling for the gold medal.
The four Sri Lankan riders Avishka Medonza, Shehal Chamod Silva, Nidush Nirantha and Madushanka were instructed by the coach to stay in a bunch and maintain a steady pace behind the more fancied Indians during the race. Since the Sri Lankan riders were very good at sprinting, the strategy was to break out in a group at the opportune time. However, Navy’s champion rider Madushanka decided to pull away on his own around 11 kilometres before the finish line in a selfish and unsuccessful bid to win the gold medal, the coach has reported.
Incidentally Sri Lanka won the gold medal in the Road Race event at the SAG held in Dhaka, Bangladesh (2010) and in Guwahati, India (2016) but failed to repeat this feat in Nepal. Sri Lanka won two silver and four bronze medals in cycling.
Volleyball
Sri Lanka has never won a gold medal in volleyball in the history of SAG and the spikers were aiming to win gold medals in Nepal after both men and women won silver medals in 2016. However, Sri Lanka’s volleyball teams not only failed to win gold but had to settle for bronze medals.
The Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation (SLVB) having set themselves the target of going for gold, even got down two Cuban coaches Manuel Torres (men) and Roberto Cepero (women) who were paid a stipend of US$ 1,500 per month. The men’s coach was here for 14 months while the women’s coach for nine months. The coaches were got down by the Ministry of Sports who funded their expenses here. However, their contracts have not been renewed and the coaches were sent home.
The federation had provided regular international exposure to the national teams and done everything within their capacity to improve the standard of players by providing all facilities. The national pool underwent residential training for the past year.
The SLVB has also decided not to bring down foreign coaches and give local coaches a chance to guide the national side. There are plans to conduct an international coaching programme to uplift the standard of local coaches.
Beach volleyball
Sri Lanka created history when they won the inaugural beach volleyball event at the SAG with the men and women bagging gold and silver medals. Significantly the victorious Sri Lanka teams were trained by local coaches.
Medals
Sri Lanka’s gold medal tally has increased by 14 compared to Dhaka (2010) and Guwahati (2016) through sports badminton (1), boxing (1), golf (2), judo (1), tae kwon do (4), triathlon (1), wrestling (2) and beach volleyball (2).