Waruna faces dilemma at Chinese air port -Misses out 3rd leg -Returning to Sri Lanka
Lack of proper travel arrangements resulted in javelin thrower Waruna Lakshan Dayarathne missing the flight when traveling from China to Chinese Taipei for the third leg of Asian Grand Prix as authorities had not allowed his javelins as luggage in the flight.He is now returning to Sri Lanka and will miss out the third and final leg of Asian Grand prix.
The team had flown off yesterday (29th ) morning from Hangzhou Xiaoshan Air Port of China to the Chinese Taipei without Waruna who was forced to stay back as he could not afford to lose his javelins since those are invaluable to them; since it’s just hardly that they get new javelins from AASL or any authorities.
Waruna had been asked to pay an additional amount of money if he is to check in his javelin and had not been allowed to pay that amount in US dollars or any other currencies other than Chinese Yuan which none of SL team had at that moment as everyone had changed their money getting ready to fly out of China. To top that, there were no banks inside airport in that section and the team had been left helpless at that moment.
He had been promised by the Chinese authorities at the air port, another ticket the following day once the payment for the javelin had been done but later had refused that and asked additional expenses of nearly Rs. 50000 for the air ticket on the following day, that too subject to availability of a flight.
It’s not the first time SL athletes had to face travel torture due to authorities opting to buy the cheapest available tickets rather than the most convenient ones. Air tickets for the Grand Prix team had been booked by the Sports Ministry trough ‘Ceylon Tours’ and it seems no one had considered or the ticketing people had not been informed by the ministry regarding baggage carried by athletes, which is unusual to that of normal passengers.
According to the international practice when an international sporting team is traveling, the air ticketing is done accordingly paying additional amounts of expenses for specific baggage carried or finding air lines which allow those equipment on board which clearly had not happened.
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According to a former javelin thrower SL authorities never arrange special permission or anything when they travel with special items such as javelins or poles which is used for pole vaulting; they always have to discuss and sort out matters at air port when problem arise. According to him especially when traveling by small aircrafts such as a domestic flight they have faced similar situations of the flight not accepting a javelin as luggage. The third leg of Asian Grand Prix will be held on 30th April.
