Select only cream – Badra – Aftermath of Wuhan

The Sri Lanka camp of 23 athletes finished with one bronze medal in the 21st Asian Athletics Championship which concluded here in Wuhan, China on Sunday.
Sri Lanka only medal came thanks to Nimali Liyanarachchi who finished the women’s 800 metres in third place. The rest of the Sri Lanka athletes failed to get medals but some of them produced their personal best and set new National records.
“Many athletes did their personal best. The rain was heavy on the last day, which was the downfall for those who took part on the last day” said team manager Badra Gunawardene talking about the Championship before leaving to Sri Lanka.
“There are many young athletes who are the future of Sri Lanka. Rather than spending money on everyone we should take care of this cream and take them to win medals for SL in the international arena” added Gunawardene.
As per Gunawardene, the Sri Lanka team was comprised of some athletes who competed in events even though they were not good enough to at least win a heat.
“There were some athletes we knew were useless, but we couldn’t argue with the selection committee. But the athletes who had been omitted initially and was included at the last minute, like the Men’s 4X100m relay team, produced a National record, while Rumeshika Rathnayake clocked the third fastest 100m time in Sri Lanka” said Gunawardene.
As she described, Sri Lanka finds it very hard to match with Asian sprinters and should only target relays.
“We only practiced baton change for three days. What we should do is take these athletes to one place and train them with baton changing regularly for a long period in order to get used to it” said Gunawardene.
Also, Gunawardene said that many finals on the last day and change of medal ceremony schedule for women’s 800m was the reason for their mistake of not giving the flag to Nimali at least for her medal ceremony.
Meanwhile, on their way back to Sri Lanka the team will spend 17 hours transit in Shanghai without accommodation. The team was furious about that and had asked at least for two rooms for them to rest until their flight, but said their appeal was unsuccessful.
“We did everything, ticketing and visa at the last minute, and there was no time to change those” said Gunawardene.
Gunawardene was also furious about organizing of the event, which was very poor for a calibre of Asian level.
“There were no people with responsibility. We had to ask for everything. The people at technical room and other places had no idea what they were doing. Language was a big problem for us. We expect more from China when they host Asian events like this” said Gunawardene.
Sri Lanka finished in 16th position with one bronze medal. The Championship was won by China with 15 Golds, followed by Qatar 7 and India 4.