By Chathura Ranasinghe Sri Lanka’s Yupun Abeykoon, Gayantika Kumari, and Nilani Ratnayake left for America on Monday (11) to participate in the World Athletics Championship to be held in Oregon, USA on Friday (15). Abeykoon left for America from Italy where he has been training, while Nilani and Gayantika left from Sri Lanka. Unexpectedly, the visas of the players concerned were delayed and thus they reached Oregon with only two days to go before the start of the tournament.His coach Claudio Liccardello told the Aruna newspaper that Abeykoon’s mental preparation and his last few training sessions were hampered due to this delay in obtaining his visa.Liccardello further commented: “Yupun is a player who has maximum effort and dedication. He does exactly what he is supposed to do. But he had to scramble for the last few days to get the visa. A month ago, there was confirmation regarding Yupun’s World Championship qualification. But if these processes had started at that time, Yupun would not have missed these last few days of training. This is a world championship. I had controlled Yupun’ sleep to adjust for the time difference.” He further added: “Normally, for an Italian player, he will only be expected to go and collect the visa. Everything else is done by the respective athletic officials. I have been Yupun’s coach for three years. I haven’t asked anything from the authorities. But they haven’t even sorted out lodging for us in America yet. No matter the struggles, Yupun will give his best to the country and his fans.”Yupun’s first round matches and Gayantika’s preliminary round matches are scheduled to start from Saturday (16).
