Performances of athletes please AASL President Major General Palitha Fernando:

Sri Lanka plans to move forward

By Dinesh WEERAWANSA

ATHLETICS: Sri Lanka athletics is gearing to march forward with fresh talent. President of the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka (AASL), Major General Palitha Fernando said there is enough and more talent available around the country and the need of the hour is to have a steady program to sharpen their skills and produce medallists at international level.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Observer on his return from the recent IAAF World Championships in South Korea, Sri Lanka’s athletic chief said the AASL will embark on an ambitious program with prospective medal winners.“There is plenty of talent. We have carefully identified those talented athletes and are in the process of securing them intensive training abroad,” he said. Major General Fernando is of the belief that local coaches could only take our athletes to a certain level. “While recognising the contributions and dedication of our coaches, I must honestly tell that our athletes need expert guidance of foreign coaches once they reach a certain international standard,” he said.

Expert guidance necessary

“There is a limit that a local coach could take an athlete. But when it comes to the big league, it is mandatory that we seek expert guidance of professional international coach,” stressed Fernando.

Dismissing rumours that the standard of local athletics has gone down and the country is starved of talent, AASL President said there is plenty of talent around the country. Producing solid statistical evidence, Fernando said that the AASL has developed a talented set of athletes who could well turn out to be Sri Lanka’s future medallists at international level.

“There are eight athletes who run men’s 100m under 10.8 seconds and 10 athletes who clock bellow 10.9. Similarly in men’s 200m, there are 10 athletes who run under 22 seconds. Then there are nine athletes who clock bellow 48 seconds in men’s 400m,” he said.

“If we could carefully groom these sprinters, Sri Lanka could regain its dominance in sprints. All of them will not produce medals but we could well groom a considerable force which would produce medals,” he added.

Referring to Christine Sonali Merrill, who represented Sri Lanka at the Daegu 2011 World Championships, Fernando said women’s 400m hurdles is one event in which Sri Lanka could fare well in near future.

He said middle distance runner Chaminda Wijekoon too put up a creditable performance in South Korea. “He ran men’s 1,500m under three minutes 40 seconds for the first time. Out of nearly 2,000 athletes from 203 countries who competed at the 2011 IAAF World Championships, Wijekoon was one of the 41 athletes who established new national records for their countries,” he said.According to the Major General, long jump, triple jump, 100m, 200m and 1,500m are the most medal prospective events for Sri Lanka in the men’s events. “Among women’s events, we should fare well in women’s 400m hurdles and 400m flat. There are four girls who are running 400m under 55 seconds and that is an encouraging sign,” he said.

Better future expected

He predicted a better future for Sri Lanka athletics. “If we could groom the athletes well and if there will be a full calendar of events, Sri Lanka could win about 15 gold medals at the next South Asian Games,” he said.

That means Sri Lanka has a good chance of emulating or even bettering its best ever achievement in athletics at South Asian Games. Sri Lanka’s best display in track and field at South Asian Games was registered way back in 1991, winning a record 15 gold medals.

The AASL chief said that they are in touch with several countries, exploring overseas training facilities to country’s budding athletes. “The maximum we need is about Rs. one million for an athlete per year. We are talking to several sponsors to find finance for this ambitious program.,” he said. Fernando said that he is negotiating with Finland to train Sri Lanka’s most promising javelin throwers. “Similarly, we will find training opportunities for our top long and triple jumpers in Brazil,” he continued. His overseas training plan include openings for country’s top sprinters in either Jamaica or South Africa. “Kenya is the best place for our long and middle distance runners. Wijekoon has been training in Kenya.

Two other Lankan athletes – Merrill and hammer thrower Charith Kapukotuwa are training in the United States,” he said. Fernando said he made use of his stay in South Korea to negotiate training opportunities for Lankan athletes in countries such as Finland, Brazil, South Africa and Kenya.

A bright future for men’s javelin

Fernando added that Sri Lanka could well reach world standards in javelin throw too. “Our best performer in men’s has done 77m. That is a mere three-metres short of World Championship medal level. We could improve further and reach there in near future,” he added.

Fernando attributed relatively low performance by international athletes at the Daegu 2011 World Championship due to the IAAF’s strict anti-doping regulations. “For the first time at a world meet, all athletes had to give blood samples for testing. It was a good sign to clean the sport once and for all,” he concluded.

A delighted IAAF President announced in Daegu last week that the world governing body for track and field succeeded in its ambitious project to collect a blood sample from each of the accredited athletes participating at the IAAF World Championships.

Blood testing team from the IAAF had been working around the clock to collect samples from athletes at the Sarbi Centre in the Athletes’ Village. Nearly 2,000 blood samples had been collected, representing a sample from each participating athlete at the World Championships.

Blood testing project successful

“We are absolutely delighted at the success of this project”, said IAAF President, Lamine Diack. “It was certainly an ambitious programme but, with incredible hard work from our team, and with the remarkable co-operation of all the athletes and support personnel, a fantastic milestone has been achieved. 

The IAAF is proud of its total commitment to the fight against doping in athletics and this initiative will stand us in very goodstead as we re-double our efforts going forward,” he said.

The program of blood collection and analysis in Daegu is at the core of the IAAF’s development of an Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). Blood samples have been collected in cooperation of the Local Organising Committee and KADA (the Korean Anti-Doping Agency) and they are being analysed by the Lausanne WADA-accredited laboratory. The blood testing program is in addition to the usual in-competition testing of over 500 urine samples which are being analysed by the Seoul WADA-accredited laboratory.

Thus, the IAAF’s efforts create a drug free world of athletics is commendable. It is not only the performance that matters but how one achieves that!

USA on top

The strict anti-doping regulations in Daegu would perhaps have contributed to limit records were at the 2011 World Championship which had just a solitary world record. Jamaica’s men’s 4 x 100m relay team, anchored by the world’s fastest man Usain Bolt, ran a magnificent 37.04 seconds to set a new world record.

The US finished on top of the final medals tally with 25 medals, including 12 golds. Russia finished second with 19 medals, including nine golds. In the third place was Kenya with seven golds and 17 in all. But the hosts South Korea could not win a single medal.

Apart from that world feat by the Jamaicans, three new IAAF World Championship records too were established in Daegu. More importantly, all those three feats were achieved by women. New Zealander Valerie Adams (21.24m in shot put), Russian Maria Abakumova (71.99m in javelin throw) and Australian Sally Pearson (12.28 seconds in 100m hurdles) set new World Championship records on their way to gold.

Four new Area/Continental records were established at the Daegu World Championship – by Sunette Viljoen of South Africa (68.38m to win the bronze in women’s javelin throw), Fabiana Murer of Brazil (4.85m to win women’s pole vault gold), Andres Chocho of Ecuador (three hours, 49 minutes and 32 seconds to finish 11th in men’s 50km race walk) and Brazil’s 4 x 100m women’s relay team which clocked 42.92 seconds in heats.