Sports

Sports

And the next contestant is…?

By S.R. Pathiravithana
Amidst all panjandrums and the bluer skies tomorrow promised in the Athletic sphere it seems that all’s not well. It was clearly depicted when a lone ranger in the track and field events popped out in Prasanna Amerasekera to qualify for the forthcoming World Championships at the recently held trials at the Sugathadasa Stadium.

Ironically, the Tillekeratnes, Dharshas, Rohan Pradeeps and so on fell by the wayside not being able to make the grade. Generally it was the trio of Susanthika Jayasinghe, Damayanthi Dharsha and Sriyani Kulawansa who made their globe trotting from one championship to the other may be along with the 4-x400 relay team. However by this time Kulawansa has called it a day, Jayasinghe has decided to go back to the drawing-board in the United States of America while Dharsha failed to make the expected impact in her pet 400-metre event.

The poser is: What led our athletics to this situation? Is it that athletes are getting involved with politics along with their coaches or the coaches getting involved with politics along with their athletes? In either manner little time is left for them to concentrate on their main objective. Now the results are shown on the board.

At the same time another dangerous situation has arisen. In the first trial while the incumbent seniors were performing well below par, there were no juniors coming out and running them down into the oblivion. The only performer – Prasanna Amerasekera too is a known horse who has had his own ups and downs at the derby.

To get a better insight of the prevailing problem the Sunday Musings sought the assistance of the incumbent vice president of the Amateur Athletic Association of Sri Lanka and its immediate Past President Sunil Jayaweera.

The experienced administrator was not overly concerned about the prevailing situation he said, “Even before this it was only Susanthika, Sriyani Kulawansa, Damayanthi Dharsha and the 4-x400 contingent who generally represented Sri Lanka at the World Championships. This time instead of them we have High Jumper Manjula Kumara who has qualified in the United States, Anuradha Indrajith Cooray who has qualified in the marathon along with Prasanna Amerasekera. Along with them the 4-x400 team may also qualify”.

But, may be he did not realize that it is only Amerasekera who has already reserved his berth at the World Championships in the track and field events in which Sri Lanka has done so well over the years, and at the same time Prasanna Amerasekera is no Susanthika Jayasinghe. (I wish I may be proved wrong at the end).

Giving more insight into the whole episode was the secretary of the AAA Prema Pinnawela. His contention was that the doors were still not closed for the local athletes to qualify for the World Championships. Pinnawela explained “In the 4-x400 event we have a slight problem in the final quartet especially among Prasanna Amerasekera and Rohan Pradeep. However the other athletes, Sugath Tillekeratne, Ranga Wimalawansa Rohitha Pushpakumara and Manoj Pushpakumara are there as backup athletes and they could make the expected grade. The expected timing is 3 minutes 04 seconds and I think they can go for that.”

The AAA secretary further elaborated “The Athletics nationals and the final trials will be worked off concurrently at the Sugathadasa Stadium on 15,16 and 17 July. The main attraction at this meet will be high jumper Manjula Kumara who will be coming back to Sri Lanka especially to take part in this meet. Manjula has been doing 2.20 metres regularly in the United States while on training and we expect him to touch 2.27 metres when he takes part here at the nationals. At the same time we have planned to give the experienced hands a double chance to qualify this year.

Now Damayanthi Dharsha feels that she could do better if she reverts to the 200 metres event rather than the 400metres that she is taking part at present. So we have decided to give these type of veterans a chance of competing in the Junior Nationals which will take place from 8th to the 10th of July prior to taking part in the senior nationals from the 15th to the 17th. This chance may help them to better their timings at competitive level. However they will be afforded this chance only if the request comes through their respective coaches”.

The message is very clear. At present all the king’s horses and all king’s men are working overtime to put Humpty back together again. At the same the officials are talking about K.T.M. Harris from Trincomalee (100 and 200) U.G. Wickremasinghe from Kandy (400 metres) and Lahiruni Peiris (High Jump) as promising stars for the future. If at least these three athletes could have the same influence that their immediate predecessors had at least in the Asian arena we would should consider ouqselves lucky. And once again I wish they could prove me very…very wrong.

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