- Athletics Walala A. Ratnayake National School)

“On the whole, in school Sports, especially in Athletics, it is possible to unearth talent. Presently, we see talented Sportsmen/Sportswomen coming out of schools. The present crop of talented Athletes such as Himasha Eshan, Rumeshika Ratnayake, Indunil Herath and Ishara Sandaruwn have come out on top from school level to the National level. However, we have no plans to guide and nurture this new-found talent. Only the Tri-Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) are making a noteworthy contribution by recruiting them, training them and giving them the opportunity to participate in National and International level competitions. Those Sports-persons who like joining the Tri-Forces do so and continue with their Sports careers, while others, who unfortunately, don’t want to join, call it quits. But take a country such as India. They indeed protect their school talent and guide them to international standards. For instance, Indian Railways employs these young Athletes, along with their Banks and government institutions. In India, they don’t wait for sponsors. The Indian government takes care of them and maintains their National pools as well. These National pools continue for the whole year. At the recent Asian Junior Athletic Championships in Taiwan, Sri Lanka returned empty handed without a single medal. The reason being, Sri Lanka has no long term plan to guide our talented Athletes. We have talent, but they are not properly harnessed and guided. The practice in Sri Lanka for many years is that, even when we know well in advance of an international championship, we only train our athletes at the last moment. Athletes are selected only within a fortnight. They are then trained and dispatched to the championships. Talented Athletes are unearthed from schools all the time. But unfortunately, we don’t have a proper plan to guide them through. We also have a major shortfall in PTIs. Physical Education during the 80’s and 90’s was implemented correctly. Now its known as Health & Physical Education, with no improvement. Also, nowadays in schools, (except for Cricket and Rugby), we see teachers concentrating only on studies. The Education Ministry should get involved and advise Principals that, participation in Sports too, enables a student to enter university by accruing points from National and International level games. The NSG concept in the 80’s saw a huge improvement in schools Sports. Schools Principals at the that time participated and supported the concept to uplift Sports in their respective schools. On the whole, every school in the country participated and gained. The outcome of this concept has been the emergence of athletes of the calibre of Damayanthi Darsha from Ampara, Dammika Menike from Galle, Sugath Thilakaratne from Viduli Pura, Norton Bridge, Susanthika Jayasinghe from Warakapola and Sriyantha Dissanaike from Colombo. I would also like to mention that, the Sri Lanka Men's Volleyball team won Gold at the 1991 SAG, and the Sri Lanka Football team won Gold at the 1995 SA Football Championships. In the past, Sri Lanka had Sports Schools which benefited poor schoolchildren. Students from every district were able to enter these Sports schools. Now these Sports schools don’t function. For instance, Sports Schools such as Madampe Central and Poramadulla Central were famous for producing Volleyball players and Athletes, but today, it is not so. Today, school PTI's and coaches who train the students, don’t have the required technical knowledge from proper training programmes abroad. But Sports Officers at the Sports Ministry go on foreign tours. The PTI’s in schools are not properly trained as the Physical Education Unit in Bandarawela too is closed. If we want to uplift Sports standard, we need to have a 5-year plan."