• Has money incurred gone down the drain?

Despite the incurrence of a hefty sum of Rs. 40 million by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs to send a sizeable contingent of local sportsmen and women to the 33rd Olympics in Paris this summer, only six stars had managed to book their tickets to the quadrennial Games, The Daily Morning Sports learns.

It has been said that a 58-member squad of elite athletes had been selected and maintained for some time now under the supervision of the Director General of the Sports Ministry Professor (Rear Admiral) Shemal Fernando, and on the advice of Sports Minister Harin Fernando, targeting the Paris Olympics.

However, despite the requisite facilities and training being provided to these sportsmen and women at the cost of the aforementioned sum, only six had managed to book their berth at the showpiece event, leading many to question the true worth of the exercise.

It has been revealed that the Ministry concerned had spent Rs. 100,000 monthly to the 58-member elite squad of athletes and their trainers, while a further sum of Rs. 60,000 had also been offered monthly as a nutritious stipend.

Furthermore, from January to 30 June this year, the Ministry had taken care of airfare, visa fees, hotel accommodation expenses, and entry fees of meets at all overseas events competed by the squad of elite athletes, Sports Ministry sources said.

Joint-lowest

But, the end result had been Sri Lanka sending its joint-lowest number of athletes for a single edition since the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

This year Sri Lanka will be sending only six athletes to the upcoming Olympic Games in France, following the qualification of sprinter Aruna Darshana over the weekend.

He became the first 400 m runner in two decades to make it through to the quadrennial event, since Rohan Pradeep Fernando did so at the Athens Olympics.

The Daily Morning Sports has also learnt that, despite Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) having provided a cash bonanza of $ 100,000 (Rs. 30.4 million) to South Asia’s fastest man Yupun Abeykoon, to boost his chances of entering his second successive Games, the latter had failed to qualify either directly, or via the wildcard system.

Poster boy

The Italy based poster boy of the domestic athletics arena only returned to the country a fortnight ago to compete at the concluded 102nd Athletics National Championship held at the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Diyagama.

This was after he had contested a spate of international meets, and all the while hoping to enhance his chances of qualifying directly to the Paris Games. 

But, tragedy struck at the most unexpected of time to injury-prone Abeykoon, and a muscle injury sustained during the course of the 100 m event forced him to withdraw, jeopardising his hopes of flying to France.

He was thus compelled to miss the Special Selection Trials held for the elite athletes by Sri Lanka Athletics (SLA) on 30 June, which was the cut-off date for athletes to qualify for the showpiece by the IAAF, while hoping for a wildcard entry at the 11th hour.

His fate was then sealed as sprinter Aruna Darshana qualified directly to the Games, prompting Abeykoon to head back to Rome empty-handed, having returned home for the first time in five years with much hope and aspiration.

For the record, the country’s lowest ever participation at the quadrennial event has been at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, and at the Mexico City Olympics 12 years later, where the island-nation had only three athletes representing her. 

The overall local contingent to Paris consists of three athletes from track and field – Dilhani Lekamge (javelin throw), Tharushi Karunaratna (800 m), and Aruna Darshana (400 m).

The remaining three are; shuttler Viren Nettasinghe, and swimmers Kyle Abeysinghe, and Ganga Seneviratne respectively. 

Efforts made to contact DG of the Sports Ministry to seek his views proved futile as he failed to respond.