This is the million-dollar question that blurs in a whirl centering around Sri Lankan Olympic sports run by the National Olympic Committee (NOC) that has today come full circle in what has reached boiling point of the local scenario.
Best put in Shakespearan parlance, ‘To be or Not to Be’ from one of the Bard’s masterpieces.
Today’s athletic scenario surrounding the governing body is of potential athletes evidently left stuttering in their tracks like in the land of the blind where over time we have seen power wielding officials ruling the roost denying athletes their due place.
One does not have to grope far to get a picture of how athletics has been run by officials of the of nerve center of the sport, the National Olympic Committee (NOC) to whom the organisation has become a haven in their entrenchment for donkeys’ years in the seats of power. It is a known fact that top officials manning the NOC have stayed put lock, stock and barrel for decades while the poor athletes have been mere languishing entities.
The modus operandi of such officials has been to trumpeting in the name of athletic sports and the athletes welfare to doing quite the reverse hell bent on occupying the big seats of power.
The best see through as to the sorry state of affairs at the NOC is the raging controversy within surrounding its Secretary General Maxwell Silva wo was removed by the sports Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage recently in a last minute move to salvaging the athletic sport from being banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) if it’s directive to remove Silva was not adhered to by the NOC.
As it was, the NOC did not comply with the NOC President, Suresh Subramaniam in a lull.
Consequently, the sports minister was compelled to step in and do what the NOC Pesident failed to do to save the sport. Maxwell Silva has been suspended pending an inquiry on corruption allegations including human trafficking by taking six nonmembers of the NOC as part of a delegation to the Commonwealth Games in 2022., has been stunning developments.
The controversy has taken a new twist with Silva going to courts against his removal citing the sports minister and Attorney General and relevant NOC officials as respondents.
The whole issue is a big slur on Sri Lankan athletics.
When will all the can of worms come clean or will it not at all that kindles a terrible past of officials hell bent on occupying the big seats of power in that fat lane that has been the sorry athletic story for decades.