ABA Ex Co To Review Manju’s SAF exclusion

Manjula Wanniarachchi – exclusion under review

By T.M.K. Samat

The ABA Executive Committee is to review tomorrow (26) the exclusion of long-time national champion Manjula Wanniarachchi from the country’s boxing team to the SAF Games, next January in Dhaka.
The 29-year-old boxer, who fought in last month’s World Championships in Milan, is not in the six-man team named by the five-member selection committee. The ex-co had earlier decided to designate last week’s National Championships as the trial for SAF Games selections. Wanniarachchi was scheduled to fight in the Nationals, but made a late withdrawal claiming he had influenza.

Consequently, the selection committee headed by Herbert Embuldeniya (and including retd. DIG J. Thangavelu, Nivea Embuldeniya, H.S. Caldera and Cuban coach R. R. Rafael) didn’t consider the Slimline boxer for selection, and, in keeping with the ex-co’s decision, picked half-dozen boxers from the list of the 11 National Championship winners.

The selected are from the six lower weight division, from under-48 kgs. to under-64 kgs. The restriction to only the lower weights is a consequence of the Dhaka organisers restricting the boxing competition to just those weight classes. “As I understand it, the host country has cut back on some events so that new disciplines can be accommodated – a twenty20 cricket tournament is one among the new medal sports that will be featured in Dhaka,’’ said an ABA official.

The six-member team: T. M. C. Tennekoon (light fly),  P. D. Suresh (fly), A. Sameera (bantam), N. S. P. Silva (feather), K K Jayasundera (light) and R G S Kumarasinghe (lt. welter).

The selections, The Sunday Leader understands, were made last Friday night after the National finals, but have not been forwarded for Sport Ministry approval yet, ostensibly until the ex-co reviews the selections tomorrow. It is reliably learnt the exclusion of Wanniarachchi will figure prominently in tomorrow’s discussions.

The debate is expected to centre around

1/ since Wanniarachchi’s exclusion is due to illness, not defeat, would the granting of a trial against his replacement be feasible;

2/ thought to be an Olympic candidate, does his exclusion from the SAG Games retard our hopes of qualification for the 2012 Games;

3/ was his illness serious enough to warrant absence from the trials

4/ is it fair by the selected boxer, P. D Suresh of the Air Force, a team that has not delivered the success expected of them but is now committed to come out from the doldrums, and

5/ is it fair to exclude a champion who hasn’t been defeated by any local boxer since 1998 because he was allegedly too sick to fight.
Wanniarchchi is vastly experienced having fought in two World Championships, two Asian Games and an assortment of countless other international meets. His biggest success was a silver medal in the multi-national Kings Cup meet in 2005. His best performance in three appearances in SAF was a silver medal in 2004.

His utter dominance in local competitions, it was thought, was contributing little to his improvement. So he was packed off to Los Angeles last February to prepare long term for the 2012 Olympics. Now he is thought to be unsuitable for the SAF Games – an irony that will not be lost on the ex co members tomorrow.