Uncertainty, a thought that prevails in the minds of every Sri Lankan through day and night. Be it the security, food, fuel, job security, Sri Lankans are going through one of the hardest time periods they have ever faced. With no end in sight to these economic and political issues, it’s taking a heavy toll on all the aspects of the country. With the Commonwealth and Asian games closing up, this has been a serious problem for our sports sector as well.
The National Olympic Committee released a media announcement (found at: https://olympic.lk/nocnews/366?fbclid=IwAR2PWPTu8U06ITGJtEa4baJb1fo6Ov8vnMRy-F3BcJ3oTQ3-bfiGF30_6yc) on the 30th of June, stating that 114 athletes and 51 officials will be participating in this year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games. The actual squad is yet to be released. Turning back to a previous announcement made by Amal Edirisooriya, Director General of Sports, he stated that,
“Given the current economic crisis in the country, we can only support a few participants and we have decided to offer it to those with medal prospects this year.
Others can travel if they can find the airfare as all other facilities are provided by the organizers”
Obviously the team sports participants, the women’s cricket team and rugby teams announced that they will meet their own expenses and it won’t be a problem for the foreign based athletes as well, but what about all the other athletes? With a lot of athletes performing at their best currently and Sri Lanka winning 6 medals, the highest we have ever earned in a Commonwealth games event at the last edition at Gold Coast in 2018, keeping the hopes for an even better performance this year, will that be cut short due to the economic struggles. That’s yet to be seen. The press release on the 30th also stated that
“Due to the financial constraints and qualifying in sports with qualifying standards to earn the eligibility for participation, the selection was done meticulously through a stringent selection process under the scrutiny of CGA Sri Lanka, MOYS and NSSC, restricting the total number to 114 male and female athletes.”
How fair is this for the athletes who have made a ton of sacrifices to perform at their best. Yes, giving the opportunity for the medal prospected athletes is good, but what about the future generation. The experience at the international level is inimitable. Aren’t we stripping them off from obtaining that valuable experience that’ll help their and the country’s hope for more glory in sports.
The airfares for the athletes participating from Sri Lanka will be covered by the Ministry of Sports and the Commonwealth fund but what about the future. The Asian games are coming along next year and a lot more events will be held in the future. What then?
Ushan Thiwanka, one of the biggest medal hopes we had for the Commonwealth games decided to opt out from the games citing personal reasons. This was a big loss because he was within the top three of the performers eligible to participate. This brought to attention the fact that the The Sri Lankan Athletics Association failed to provide him with the higher grade competitions needed to qualify for the Olympics and World championships. He was not able to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, despite breaking the national record, which he clearly deserves to be a part of. This brings me to my next point.
In 2018 the IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federations) made a major decision to overhaul the qualification for major events like the Olympics and World Athletic championships. The previous method was to record an athlete’s best performance and compare it with a qualification mark. If he/she/they passed that mark, they will be given the opportunity to compete, but with the overhaul, a new system called “IAAF World rankings” was introduced which evaluates the overall performance of an athlete giving more points for the performances in the international level events, while giving a minor level prominence to national events. For the Sri Lankan athletes, this boils down for the officials to provide them with enough opportunities to compete at the international level and keep up their rankings, which the officials have failed in many cases. What could have been the outcome if they DID go ahead and fulfilled that requirement? Just a concept for our speculation now. With the current economic struggles it won’t be getting any better either.
Through all these the ones who lose their hope are the athletes. All their talents and sacrifices are laid to waste unless the government and the officials figure out a method to give them more opportunities. Will it ever be better? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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