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Gold prospects in Delhi for SL 'not bright' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The head of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOCSL) is not very optimistic about his country’s medal winning prospects at the Commonwealth games (CWG) to be held in New Delhi. Domestic problems regarding training have lessened our prospects, Hemasiri Fernando President of the NOCSL told the BBC Tamil Service. “I am not optimistic because of many reasons, but we have some hopes in athletics, boxing, archery, shooting and weightlifting,” said the NOCSL president. Sri Lanka is sending a contingent of 90 athletes of which one third are women. However, the NOCSL feels its medal winning prospects are very less. The largest Sri Lankan team for Delhi would be from athletics and rugby, Fernando confirmed.
However he says that participating in the CWG would offer their athletes the right level of exposure for the future opined Hemasiri Fernando. Sri Lanka has won 10 medals at the Commonwealth Games so far including one gold at Melbourne.
Chinthana Widanage, the weight lifter won the country’s only gold in 2006. “We have been pointing to the authorities for the past so many years the need for appointing foreign coaches, but unfortunately that is not happening” the country’s Olympic committee chief said. Standards fallen The standard of Sri Lankan sports, particularly athletics has gone down according to Mr Fernando due to lack of expert training. The Olympic committee could do nothing about it because it beyond their control the president of NOCSL said. "The Olympic committee can only advice the authorities how to take forward development of sports including training, but if the authorities do not listen to us, we have to cross our fingers and wait," Mr Fernando also says that their role is only confined to advising the authorities and it is up to the authorities and the associations to take it forward. The president of the NOCSL says that they don’t have the funding, or the mechanism and machinery to get directly involved in the training part. “This is a very unfortunate situation for Sri Lankan sports,” Hemasiri Fernando added. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We have some hopes in athletics, boxing, archery, shooting and weightlifting
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