by Reemus Fernando

Tharushi Karunaratne’s outstanding achievement of winning three medals including two golds at the Asian Junior Athletics Championship once again turned the spotlight on her school, Ratnayake Central, Walala and coach Susantha Fernando who has the rare distinction of training nearly one third of Sri Lanka’s Asian Junior Athletics Championship medallists in history.

From Manoj Pushpakumara’s back to back silver winning efforts in Thailand and Malaysia (in 2002 and 2004) to Karunaratne’s double golds in South Korea, Fernando’s trainees of Ratnayake Central, Walala have been part of ten medals Sri Lanka won at these championships.

Since the inception of the Asian Junior Athletics Championships in 1986 Sri Lanka have won 34 medals. Being part of ten of those medals is a huge achievement and no other coach has even come closer to achieving such a mighty accomplishment. Fernando has also trained many others to represent Sri Lanka at these championships.

A close analysis shows that most of his medals at this biennial event have come in the 800 metres and the 400 metres. Those who are familiar with records and Schools Athletics statistics know that Ratnayale Central dominate 800 metres at All Island Schools Championships more than any other school. Incidentally, at a particular juncture (2021) almost all of Sri Lanka’s 800 metres records from boys and girls National Youth 800 metres to boys and girls National Junior 800 metres to men’s and women’s National 800 metres records were simultaneously held by either his charges or the athletes who had his guidance at junior level.

Though his long association with Ratnayake Central make him a highly respected school coach, he has a fair share of international medals at senior level including the Asian Athletics Championships and the South Asian Games. Fernando’s more than three decades long experience coaching athletes in middle and long-distance events has made even the Ministry of Education respect his opinion in formulating competition structures. That was why all his proposals (seen by The Island) to change the track and field competition structure received the approval of the Education Ministry authorities recently.

Inclusion of the 3,000 metres to the Under 18 age category, reintroduction of the long-distance medley relay to the Under 18 are category and above and the 4x800metres relay to the Under 16 age category of the Relay Carnival were among his proposals. He also made a request to include either 600 metres or 800 metres to the Under 14 age category as a talent identification event to be conducted only as a ‘merit standard event’.

His reasoning was that the particular age category had only short-distance events which does not help identify athletes who have the potential to compete in long-distance events in the future.

The 800 metres was included to the Under 14 age category as a competition discipline (not as a talent identification event conducted for merit standards as proposed by Fernando). Incidentally, when Fernando’s charges were winning medals in South Korea, the Minister of Education here was convinced by a group of enthusiasts including officials from the Sports Ministry to scrap the newly introduced event.

It is a pity that the Minister did not even consult the officials of his own Ministry before reversing the gazette. It was not for nothing that the event was introduced to the age category. He should have inquired as to why the event was not included as a talent identification event instead of giving the status of a fully-fledged competition event. Minister’s kneejerk reaction has put many Masters in Charge of track and field in schools in a quandary as they had already sent entries for the said event for upcoming Zonal Championships. It would have been a different story had the discipline been discontinued after the Zonal stage or the provincial stage.

The Education Minister needs to respect the opinion of its own officials who have proven credentials.