Sports

Sports

Minister takes over reins amidst allegations of rigging !
Athletics runs into confusion
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Though the entrance to the Amateur Athletics Association reminds you of an entrance to a dungeon, the seats in that institution are always hotly contested. Yesterday at its Annual General Meeting the scenario was not very different. It was hot and electric.

This weekend became a very crucial one for Sri Lanka as far as sports are concerned. However the most prominent of the lot were the Annual General Meetings of the two sports in which Sri Lanka has reached the top during the past two decades - cricket and athletics.

Ironically, the cricket AGM that was scheduled to be held today became a nonstarter with the Sports Minister deciding an Interim Committee would be the best for the country's needs at present while the Annual General Meeting of the Amateur Athletic Association had its fate fought out with the power of the ballot.

After the voting was called, as predicted it was Minister Janaka Bandara Tennekone who prevailed and took the hot seat to look after needs of the athletes and athletics during the coming year. However his win did not come on a platter. He was home only by two votes at 56 to 54.

However in the aftermath of the counting of the vote for the president, Dervin Perera's group staged a walk out demanding a fresh vote. They alleged that some spoiled votes were counted towards the tally of the winning candidate.

Now it is very clear that there is a huge division in this sport now with nearly half the membership deciding to vote against the winner. At the same time it could be a very good omen for the sport. Now persons elected to the seats will have to deliver the goods or get out as there will be a strong opposition always looking over their shoulders.

In the pre-ballot platform both parties exchanged accusations very generously. First it was Sunil Jayaweera - the outgoing AAA president and the man behind minister Janaka Bandara Tennekone's candidature who broke the silence.

His grouse was that the ministry of sports which is the main body that governs athletics has no national plan. He said that people of the likes of Dervin Perera who now has come to contest the elections has not done their thing while having the necessary wherewithal at their beck and call.

He said in 1984 as the director of sports in the ministry of Education he started an amalgamated programme that ran hand in hand with the national athletics. This programme started bringing in results by 1991 where Sri Lanka dominated the track and field events in the SAF games that was hosted by Sri Lanka.

However since 1994 with the fall of that government the programme lost direction and the feeding to the national grid turned into a trickle. Then since 1997 only athletes like Manjula Kumara ( high jump), Anuradha Indrajith Cooray (marathon ) and Mallika Chandrakanthi (marathon) have come into reckoning at national level.

Jayaweera asserted " Not only athletics, in 1991 Sri Lanka won the gold medal at the SAF Volleyball. Just imagine what has happened to that sport"?

When asked why he is backing minister Tennekone's candidature, the incumbent president said, " First I decided to back Ranjith Weerasena who had decided run for the seat this year, but, then when minister Tennekone came into the fray and Weerasena pulled out and pledged his support to the minister I decided to back him. Besides that the minister has promised to put a four-storeyed hostel to house athletes who are in training. I think this is one of the urgent needs of the sport and if this is done a lot of lag behinds could be addressed.

Though more soft spoken than Jayaweera, the other contender and former national coach Dervin Perera was equally vocal. He laid the fault on the predicament in athletics on the present AAA administration in which he is also a vice president. He said in the year 2000 Dialog GSM had a Rs.7.5 million sponsorship package with the AAA. However in the aftermath they did not like the way the monies were handled by the present administration and pulled out.

Not stopping at that point, Perera pointed a accusing finger at Sunil Jayaweera. He said in the post 1994 era when Sunil Jayaweera was the director of sports in the ministry of education he barred school children from taking part in any other event and also stopped the ministry coaches from taking part in education ministry activities. As a result only the physical training instructors were left for schools. Like that the entire school mechanism, which was the main feeding point to the national grid, lost direction.

However he said if he had been elected he had mooted two plans for the development of athletics in the country. One a short term one and the other along term one. In this mechanism he has also amalgamated a programme which includes the ministry of education.

Now the question is both parties who contested yesterday knew where the fault lay and what remedial measures to be taken-- at least in their pre election statements they said that. However what did they do during the past ten years to remedy the situation. If the schools programme had fallen down, Sunil Jayaweera as the president of the AAA could have persuaded the government in power to look into this anomaly and address it.

At the same time Dervin Perera as a former national coach and a high up in the ministry of sports could easily have brought this to the notice of the respective authorities without waiting till he became the president to put out a programme of this nature.

However, once again what should be said is that Athletics or any other sport for that matter is not any one’s personal property or inheritance. The need of the hour is for every one to get together forgetting the differences and work shoulder to shoulder and bring the game out of its present predicament.

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