Athletics can resume despite pandemic – Dr Lal Ekanayaka

Director of the Institute of Sports Medicine (ISM), Dr. Lal Ekanayaka, said that resuming athletics despite the COVID-19 pandemic will be possible, as athletics has been categorized as low risk sport with minimum contact between participants.

Athletes have been left frustrated recently as the National trials scheduled from 24 to 26 October was postponed due to the Minuwangoda cluster, which was then converted to a Performance Test for limited athletes. That too was cancelled due to quarantine curfew and then rescheduled for 29 and 30 October, and then again cancelled due to the escalating situation in the country.

So far this year Sri Lanka was unable to hold a single national level athletics competition, though many countries with far worse COVID-19 cases were able to resume athletics competitions, including Italy, which was one of the worst hit countries in the world a few months ago.

Dr. Ekanayaka outlined several steps which could be taken to enable Sri Lanka Athletics conduct the National Athletics championship, which seems to be the only athletics event possible during the short time left before the year ends.

“First of all, athletics isn’t a contact sport and is categorized as low risk, which we could resume easily with proper guidelines. But lack of proper liaison between relevant authorities to ensure the resumption of the sport has resulted in slow decision making. Hence, I hope to write to the Health Ministry requesting formation of a committee to make key decisions when it comes to resumption of sports,” said Dr. Ekanayake.

The National Championship is now scheduled for the first week of December, which could however be pushed towards end of December, which gives administrators and athletes more breathing space and time to prepare.

“Diyagama Stadium is the ideal location for athletes, as it already has a hostel where they can live. They have free environment there, more space and much lower risk when compared to Sugathadasa Sports Complex in Kotahena area. The only problem is the newly laid track is still under construction and line marking hasn’t been done yet, for which experts from Thailand have to be brought down. If we properly liaise with relevant authorities, we could get them down to Sri Lanka and quarantine within Diyagama Stadium premises and let them do the rest of the work at the new track in a bio secure bubble and finish the track. If we could get this done by November, we have ample time in December to get athletes to Diyagama hostel and let them train there in a bio secure bubble and carry out random testing to ensure a COVID free environment there,” added Dr. Ekanayake.

If Diyagama suggestion does not go ahead as planned, Dr. Ekanayake suggests Torrington sports hostel could be utilized with the same scenario, where athletes should be given separate buses for transportation to Sugathadasa Stadium.

“I personally prefer Diyagama hostel rather than Sugathadasa Sports hostel, as the Sugathadasa sports hostel is located in a high-risk area, and most athletes don’t trust the premises following the unfortunate Dengue epidemic incident leading up to the South Asian Games last year which occurred at Sugathadasa sports hostel,” said Dr. Ekanayaka.

Dr. Ekanayaka also said that he wants to have the final list of athletes who will compete at the Nationals to draw up plans for a successful competition. According to him outstation athletes don’t have to be provided hostel facilities in Colombo, as they could be provided hostels based on their location, be it Sri Bodhi Gampaha, Digana, Matara or Nuwara Eliya. Sports Ministry and Sri Lanka Athletics will have to come up with solutions for those athletes to be trained at least two weeks prior to the Nationals in a bio secure environment with no outside contacts, and then arrange separate transportation for them to transfer to the Colombo sports hostels ahead of the Nationals.

“We can’t keep the country closed forever. We should learn to live with COVID-19 and resume sports which is a vital aspect of our lives. We are ready to meet all necessary health guidelines to ensure minimum risk of contamination and let athletes train and compete, as sports has already resumed in many countries which had been worst affected than us.”

He also explained that keeping training facilities open has been a challenge, as many just want to close down stadium facilities rather than following already issued health guidelines, to ensure continuous training facilities for athletes. He asserted neither the ISM nor Sports Ministry had issued any direction to close down any sporting facilities in the country in areas which had imposed quarantine curfew.