Performance monitoring to ensure better results –Fernando

Performance flops at major international athletic competitions have been a growing problem for Sri Lanka during the recent past, be it senior or junior level, where athletes who achieve qualification standards for certain championships failed miserably at the main events.

AASL is set to introduce a monitoring system to ensure that athletes will continue their training after participating at a meet until the next meet comes around. At present the tendency is to relax until the next meet comes around and train a few days before the meet. Targets will be set which athletes will have to achieve to be considered for international championships.

“We will not impose any limitation on coaches or remove athletes from junior coaches or anything. We will simply inquire from the coach about the target they are willing to achieve during a particular period and things he will do to achieve that,” said President of the AASL Maj. Gen. Palitha Fernando.

Describing further about the system he said, “In order to achieve a particular target at an athletic event, an athlete should achieve other small targets during training from time to time leading up to the event. For example, if a coach says his athlete is targeting 10.2 seconds in the 100m, we will monitor progress and appoint an officer to go for time trials. If the athlete is not on course for the said target then we have a problem and will inform the coach to address that,” said Fernando.

AASL has now introduced the said system for the junior pool and will introduce it to the senior pool after the National Athletics Championship.

As of now there are opportunities for athletes to go on and represent the country at major international championships even though they are not quite within reach of their earlier performance which gained them qualification standards, which is usually achieved months in advance.

But once the said system is in place athletes will have to be on top of their game to compete in an international event. Also, it will prevent athletes from hiding injuries before international competitions.

According to Fernando if the system proves to be a success they will appoint a Performance Monitoring Director instead of a National Coach for AASL in future.