Sri Lankan athletes stranded in Amman

Sri Lankan athletes stranded in Amman

Namal Pathirage reporting from Amman, Jordan

The Sri Lanka athletic contingent that won three gold medals two silver medals and two bronze medals at the Asian Athletics championships were forced to return to Sri Lanka in two batches as officials failed to secure airline seats for the whole team to travel together.

Team members are reported to have been disappointed over the development as they wished to return as one unit after producing such a good performance.

The five members of the silver medal winning 4X400 men’s relay team, coach Sunil Gunawardena and masseur R.P. Anura had to stay back in Amman while the rest of the team left for Sri Lanka.

The first batch is to return to Sri Lanka today.

The Sri Lanka men’s 4X400 metres relay team was to take part in the Afro-Asia championships to be held in Algeria tomorrow and were to fly there from Amman directly to take part in it.

However the trip has been cancelled with no reason given.

Sri Lanka team manager M.W. Nimalsiri told the “Daily Mirror” that he cannot take responsibility for the separation of members of the contingent.

“They appointed me as the manager forcibly. I did not like to accept it. I only wanted to come here as a representative for the Asian Athletics congress. The Association’s secretary and the officials who booked air tickets should take responsibility for this”, Nimalsiri said.

The team will have to pay for their food and accommodation and other expenses during the extra period in which they have been forced to stay on.

Coach Gunawardena said that the Association had promised to reimburse the costs.