Heart break for Nilani as barrier heights are elevated due to faux-pas

by Reemus Fernando

Steeplechase athlete Nilani Ratnayake is the closest to Olympic entry standards in the female category. Sugathadasa Stadium is the only venue in Sri Lanka where her pet event can be held as the facility at Diyagama is in a dilapidated state. Ratnayake trains at high altitudes where there are no actual barriers and water pits for proper training. She came to Colombo yesterday with the hope of producing a sub nine minutes 50 seconds at the first Selection Trial as she prepares to improve her rankings to be in contention to win a berth at the Tokyo Olympics. But a faux pas on the part of technical officials prevented her from achieving her goal and also put her in danger of being injured.

After completing the race in a time of nine minutes and 57.81 seconds the first thing she did was to question about the height of the barriers.

It was found that the barriers had been elevated by a few centimeters more than the stipulated official 76.2 cm height forcing all athletes to make an extra effort to clear the barriers.

Sources close to officials said that it was a ‘result of clear negligence’ and could have ‘been prevented if the officials were vigilant.’

“You have only local meets to improve performances due to the Covid 19 pandemic. But when you experience this kind of disappointments how can you improve. We do not have many athletes edging closer to qualifying standards,” an analyst pointed out.

Her coach Sajith Jayalal who was encouraging her to run faster from the sidelines refrained from expressing his views.

A senior coach who witnessed the event said “you can not see the difference in the height of the barriers from the sidelines. Sajith was obviously worried about her speed and was encouraging her to run faster. The extra height forced athletes to make an extra effort. It was dissapointing.

When such a faux pass happened at the National Sports Festival eight years ago the technical officials who were responsible for the incident were slapped with bans.