From hot into settled waters
View(s):The three Sri Lankan Women’s hockey team members, dealing with initial doubts and scares over their airfare sponsorship, was eventually sponsored on full basis for their Asian Games Qualifiers and will be opening their and the qualifiers itself tomorrow against Cambodia.
As the Sunday Times reported last week, only 15 of the 18 team members were guaranteed to go. But Sumith Edirisinghe told that Sri Lanka Hockey Federation had made a convincing case to the organisers, the Asian Hockey Federation, for the tournament in Indonesia, the hosts, to cover the airfare.
Subsequent to a successful appeal, the team has now ventured on an overseas assignment after a gap of five years, and left the island on Thursday (2), as confirmed already. The officials, including Edirisinghe, the manager on tour, and the coaching staff left yesterday on a SriLankan Airlines flight.
The officials and support staff, altogether four in total, were sponsored by the National Olympic Committee, who pumped in Rs.1,000,000.
Given that the island is inundated with the economic crisis, from the budget costing Rs. 200,000 per player, the Sri Lankan stickers were waived off 50% accounting for food and hosting, and only been charged US$25 a day. The total cost for the entire team is broken down to US$ 165 for visa, US$ 25 multiplied into 13 days and transport.
The Lankan lasses are pooled alongside Singapore, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong China, Cambodia, Uzbekistan, and Indonesia.