Olympic Committee going gaga

Last week we were amazed to read in the newspapers the President of our Olympic Committee saying that Sri Lanka will compete at the Winter Olympics and that for this purpose the Olympic committee is looking at constructing an ice ring!

We don’t have a winter in this country and there is no snow here. Building Ice Rings and their maintenance is very expensive and not only a waste of money but will be lucrative to those businessmen and operatives who are masters at earning commissions and kick-backs.

Forget winter games, even in normal sporting events, we don’t even qualify to compete. At the last Asian Games Sri Lanka did not win a single medal, while much smaller countries managed to win medals. In the last 10 years this is our general story at international sporting events. 

At these events there are more officials (and families) participating than athletes. When travelling officials of the Olympic committee get a daily stipend of $ 500 a day. The Olympic Committee is like our Parliament, the officials decide how much they should get paid!

The President is talking about an agreement with a tennis organisation. Tennis is not even a national sport. Olympic Committee has become a Colombo-centric business organisation. There is talk of Rs. 50 million promised by the Prime Minister. There is no need to bring in politics to sports. It should be referred to as Government funding and not identified with one politician.

 Like everything else in this country, the Olympic Committee seems to have lost its way and fallen into the hands of those who use everything to their advantage. It is high time the sport-loving public woke up to the real situation of our so-called sporting culture

Jayantha Gunawardena