Men complain while Women shine at SAG Fitness trial
Fitness trials held at the Sugathadasa Stadium for South Asian Games athletes took an unexpected turn as defending SAG 100m Champion Himasha Eashan and 200m Gold medalist Vinoj Suranjaya de Silva refused to take part in the pre-arranged 100m trial.
Ultimately officials had to compromise and agree upon a 60m fitness trial, which de Silva did not take part in, opting instead to run the 150m trial for 200m runners.
Eashan’s coach Chaminda Perera and Suranjaya’s present coach Vimukthi de Soyza were seen giving lame excuses to AA officials for not taking part in the trials, but it was very clear the only reason for refusing to participate was their unwillingness to be beaten by Yupun Abeykoon who is clearly the best sprinter going around at the moment . It was also the lack of knowledge as well as experience of coaches such as de Soyza, who was appointed by AASL as sprint coach for the tour. De Soyza hasn’t even participated at a SAG or in an athletic team or in any capacity prior to this. The only instance was when he toured as athletics coach for a lower level open championship in Malaysia. So it was understandable that all these trials and SAG was quite new to him, and he doesn’t really understand the meaning or relevance of a fitness trial.
However, unlike de Soyza, Perera has been team coach of the 2016 SAG as well as Asian Championship (2015, 2017 and 2019), but his behaviour yesterday was quite surprising for a coach of his experience, where it seemed despite his exposure to international athletics, he hasn’t learnt a thing about how other countries operate.
Eashan and de Silva placed first and second at the Nationals while Abeykoon was recovering from an injury. But a week later Abeykoon easily beat Eashan during the Army Championship, while easing down towards the end. However, on the SAG selection criteria, Abeykoon was only selected to run in the 4x100m relay. Even yesterday, Abeykoon won the 60m with ease clocking a new Sri Lanka record of 6.73 seconds with Eashan coming in second.
“Next time we will have them sign an agreement, (coaches and athletes), just after an athlete’s pool is selected, to make sure they will take part in these compulsory fitness trials, and anyone who skips or under-performs will not be taken on the tour.
Complaints of these coaches and athletes are too much now,” said President of the AASL, Maj. Gen Palitha Fernando.
Several countries conduct compulsory fitness trials for their athletes in the last week of training leading up to a major championship and leave out athletes who don’t take part. It helps to identify athletes who are nursing injuries and haven’t trained as expected. Sri Lanka has faced several situations where top athletes hide their injuries to be selected to the team in fear of losing the tour and financial benefits that comes with it, and ultimately fail miserably during the competition.
Three athletes did not take part in the fitness trials. 110m hurdler Roshan Dammika was sick, while 400m hurdler Kaushalya Madushani and Triple and Long Jumper Vidusha Lakshani did not take part citing injuries.
“If these athletes are injured just a week before the SAG, we will have to look at their medical records and take a call on their participation,” said Recorder and Senior Council Member of AASL, Saman Kumara Gunawardana.
Meanwhile, the five 100m girls had no complaints and all of them took part in the trials. Amasha de Silva won the event in 11.92 seconds with Lakshika Sugandhi coming in second also in 11.92 seconds. Sarangi Silva (12.13 sec) and Sadeepa Henderson (12.24 sec) finished third and fourth grabbing relay positions, while Sharmila Jan looked out of touch, finishing fifth in 12.32 seconds.
The only athlete with a valid excuse was 400m runner Aruna Darshana, who lost his father a few days ago and spent days involved with the funeral. Still he participated in the 300m trial and proved his fitness clocking 35.8 seconds with ease.
