SL Mountain Biking yet in a primitive stage
The birth of Mountain Biking as a sport in Sri Lanka came to effect by coincidence. Two factors influenced this decision at the time. One being that an opposing faction of cycling administrators who were disgruntled with Cycling Federation teamed up to introduce a new wing to cycling. The group was headed by Amal Suriyage and passionately supported by late veteran riders Patrick Hapuarachchi, Wasantha Kahapolaarchchi, Nishantha Piyasena, Peter Bluck, Ivon Brown and a host of cycling enthusiasts. Secondly, at the time Sri Lanka Army was organising the Colombo Super Cross 2000 at the Water’s Edge and the chairman of organising committee, Major General Neil Dias offered an opportunity to introduce mountain biking during the interval to entertain the crowds. As a result a junior and senior event was conducted and it went live. This apparently heralded a beginning to a new sport in Sri Lanka and the National Mountain Biking Association (NMBA) was born simultaneously.
“The public opinion and participation gave us the strength and Aitken Spence Hotels gave the sponsorship to do ‘Cyclo Cross’ events within their hotel parameter offering weekend packages patronizing local and foreign cycling families and adventures weekends. The NMBA grabbed the opportunity and did the organizing to the best of their ability with the hotel staff. This was an instant hit. Most of the star hotels took up for sponsorship of Cyclo Cross and this became a bench mark event in cycling calendar with 8 to 10 events during a year,” said Amal Suriyage, president National Mountain Biking Association.
This caused ripples in the Cycling Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) and splitting of hairs.
“As the controlling body rather than being supportive they tried to obstruct NMBA by using their only weapon available, the controlling arm to restrict our movement which we strongly countered by organizing more and more events finally taking cycling to a new era. NMBA stuck to their goal and made a branding for ‘Cyclo Cross’ in the country. And for the first time within the first two years we bagged a podium win at the MTB Asian Championship in Indonesia,” recounted Suriyage.
The President and his team of the Mountain Biking Association now affiliated to CFSL, however is of the view, although MTB is an Olympic discipline in the sport of cycling, neither the Sports Ministry or Education Ministry does not have this in their calendar of events still. The controlling body was not supportive for obvious reasons and gave prominence to a standard event modified version of road racing which is not even in the South Asian Games (SAG) hence the NMBA faced an uphill task running a calendar of events national and internationally, but was confident given the
recognition it can drive this sport to another golden era.
According to Suriyage, change in cycling as a pro-sport happened in the 90s from a conventional sporting era to competitive road racing on par with global trends, whereby rider and machine got the right combination to become competitive in the world arena.
“The reason was at that time the administrators running cycling had one thing in common: to deliver to the best of their ability and when the sport does well rejoice as a team. Unlike nowadays, the elected officials are cronies of the camp that put them to that position, so for them first agenda is to silence the so called opposing factor. I have seen this happening for last two decades in cycling. Good leaders are the ones who get the job done irrespective of which camp they belong to as long as he/ she can deliver. Leadership is the cue to development,” explained Suriyage.
He added the Ministry of Sports should change the attitude of the officials, rather than politicising them and instill in them a sporting culture. “For this you need to have workshops not only for players but especially for sport administrators driving them to perform well,” he added.
Suriyage confided with confidence, that all sport bodies can find volunteers who will take responsibility and bring all sports of Sri lanka to another level. “Given the task two years is sufficient to put any sport on the road map to yield results… not gold medals but making good players should be their first task. Take a cue from India. The investments made on sport and talented players in general during the last decade are paying dividends. What’s happening in Sri Lanka is in the contrary… money in circulation with the vicious circle for their private agendas and not harnessing to the benefit of the sport and its players,” he said.
The Ministry of Sports should change the attitude of the officials, rather than politicising them and instill in them a sporting culture. For this you need to have workshops not only for players but especially for sport administrators driving them to perform well