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The medal winner with the rest of the athletes and the NOCSL Officials
By Althaf Nawaz
NOC Sri Lanka Secretary General Maxwell de Silva on Tuesday lauded the American Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung for the pivotal role she played in enabling 11 Sri Lankan athletes to participate at the Trinbago 2023 - 7th Commonwealth Youth Games which was held from 4 to 11 August 2023 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Trinidad and Tobago. Thanks to the efforts of the American Ambassador the athletes brought home two medals – a silver and a bronze – for the first time since 2015.
The Secretary stated: “We struggled to get transit visas for the athletes for several days, running from pillar to post in order to reach the final destination. All efforts of the local authorities too ended in failure. Initially we approached the Swiss Embassy, which didn't materialise. Then we tried the United Kingdom visa option, which was also not successful.
“However, with the support of our Foreign Ministry the US Embassy gave us an appointment on 2 August and the next day we got our visas. We have to show our sincere gratitude to Her Excellency the Ambassador of the US Embassy and their staff who played a key role in granting us the visas. If not for her efforts it would have been a failure.”
“We had to get transit visas to send this contingent since there were no direct flights. We tried various options and the best way was obtaining a Swiss visa which was not granted. Then we opted for UK visa but that too didn't materialise. Nevertheless, we finally succeeded with the US embassy just one day before the event started,” he further added.
“With lots of obstacles we managed to get the visas but some of the key officials visas were not granted owing various reasons. With our experience, we somehow managed to participate in this event which at one stage looked like a herculean task. We would have had better results had we arrived a few days earlier. But still hats off to the team which put up a wonderful performance within the limited time and resources.
“Due to the delay of the visa process, we had to pay a thumping amount for the air tickets, which at the outset was priced at 900,000 but later ended up paying double the amount accommodating them on Business Class which was rather unusual. I thank all concerned who supported us in various ways to make this a reality,” concluded Maxwell.
Ayomal Akalanka and Nilpul Pehesara won Silver and Bronze medals respectively amidst near heartbreaks and no shows and much to the joy of the sparse Lankan community present at the venue. It was the first time since 2015 that Sri Lanka won medals at a Commonwealth Youth Games. The achievement was a unique experience as the contingent participated sans an Athletic Manager, coach or any other official accompanying them due the refusal to grant visas.
Akalanka was from Ambagamuwa MMV came second in 400m hurdles Boys final with an impressive timing of 51.61s, while Pehesara from Vijitha MMV, Dikwella cleared a height of 2.00 m to win the Bronze medal in Boys high jump.
