The team of Sri Lankan athletes who participated at the Youth Olympic Games 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, returned to Sri Lanka yesterday (20).

Among the 13 athletes who participated, steeplechase runner Parami Wasanthi Maristela Kalumarakkalage takes the shine as she had brought an international level award to Sri Lanka after 11 years by winning the bronze medal at the women’s 2000m steeplechase event. Parami is the first Sri Lankan to bring a ‘Youth Olympic Games’ Medal.

Meanwhile, athlete Shelinda Jansen finished 1st in the heat (2) of the 200m women’s stage 2 with an impressive timing of 24.07 sec where she broke her personal best of 24.98 sec despite clocking at 25.00 sec two days ago at stage 1. She finished with 9th rank overall in the world at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires with accumulation timing of 49.07 seconds.

On the day of return, athlete Parami Wasanthi commented to the media on her experience.

According to her, the Sport Ministry had promised a monthly allowance of Rs 75,000 for each athlete to continue with their sports activities. However, they had received it only for one month.

Parami says that she would be grateful if any person could assist her to continue her sports and academic activities.

Refusing to comment on a question as to if she received the necessary facilities for her practices, she stated that President Maithripala Sirisena opened an fixed deposit of 1.5 million for her and that she receives Rs 10,000 monthly from it. However, it is not sufficient for her to continue her activities, she said.

This is not the only broken promise of the sports authorities towards these athletes. Authorities had promised two houses for athletes Parami Wasanthi and Aruna Darshana when as soon as they complete the 2018 Asian Junior Athletics Championships.

They also have refused to grant the allowance given for Asian medals stating that medals achieved at the Asian Championships cannot be compared to medals achieved at the Asian Games.

Meanwhile, former Olympic-medal winning athlete Susanthika Jayasinghe responded to the grievance of the young athletes in the following manner:

“If any athlete says that they don’t receive enough facilities, I would like question what facilities we had back then. Me, Sriyani [Kulawansa] and [Damayanthi] Darsha suffered worse conditions. These athelets have better facilities than us.

With the advancement of technology, they post the winnings on social media. Then they criticize what they have by saying a poor kid had gotten these achievements. By this, the Sports Ministry and the Sports Minister are criticized. I am against this.

These athletes get many facilities. I got Rs 75,000 only when I won at the Olympics while they have only won a junior competition.

 She is still a schoolgirl. Therefore, the majority of the responsibility falls under the Ministry of Education than under the Sports Ministry. In this context, the assistance given for this child from the Sports Ministry is sufficient”