Manju’s Back Out: Under Duress Or An Admission Of Guilt?

MANJU Wanniarachchi’s retirement last week isn’t surprising; at 31, a boxer’s retirement is imminent anyway, that’s if he hasn’t already called it a day. After 15 years, eleven as an international boxer, the shelf life of Wanniarachchi’s career was clearly near to expiry – so, you’d have to say that his retirement was in the pipeline for some months.

Why it wasn’t forthcoming was due to a desire to bid farewell from the 2012 London Olympics ring –an overambitious time and place to say the least.  The Olympic ring, after all, isn’t a place open to all and sundry; rather it’s a hallowed square into which are allowed only the world’s best 32 boxers in each of the weight divisions, decided through a process of qualifying competitions set aside for countries in each of the five continents.
As a younger man Wanniarachchi had failed to win qualification, via the Asian trials, to either the 2008 Beijing Olympics or the Games before in Athens– so to think that an older Wanniarachchi could qualify for the 2012 Games always looked a tad too far-fetched. And that dim prospect completely vanished when he tested positive for drugs and had to hand-back the gold medal he won at the 2010 Commonwealth Games last September.
It would’ve made sense to announce his retirement in the immediate aftermath of the failed drug test. He didn’t, choosing to pursue the three options available to him to prove his innocence. The first two options didn’t help Wanniarachchi reclaim his gold medal, the country’s first in 72 years. Both options incidentally were conducted under the purview of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), in which light the prospects of reversing the result of his first test was thought to be slim.
The third option, however, evoked greater optimism. Wanniarachchi’s appeal was to be heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland – before three independent arbitrators, none of whom would have links, present or past, with the CGF or Sri Lanka. The three arbitrators were to be chosen from among 300 enlisted by the court – selections that any party would be free to challenge prior to confirming their appointments – measures to ensure the case gets a fair hearing – and judgement.
In fact, after his failed appeal to the Commonwealth Games Court, early this month in Malaysia, the boxer and his counsel publicly declared they would take their case to the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne. So the sudden decision to withdraw the appeal is difficult to comprehend, although, it must be said, his retirement (which was tagged on to the appeal withdrawal) wasn’t surprising at all. In fact, during the months-long battle to prove his innocence, he reportedly had told ABA officials that he would retire once “my name has been cleared.’’
As it turned out, though, he wrapped his withdrawal notice into his retirement papers – accepting the cruel fact that he won’t be remembered so much for his wonderful deeds in the ring as the boxer who lost his gold medal because he cheated. Condemnation of his decision to throw in the towel before the last round is easy and irresistible. But let’s be a little more charitable to the fallen boxer and consider if there might be other reasons why his declared resolve to fight to the end (to prove his innocence) should end in timid surrender.
The reason given in the press statement issued on his retirement doesn’t quite provide an unambiguous answer to convince you the decision was one of his own free will. He says: “in the interest of boxing, I have decided not to proceed with the option of forwarding (to Lausanne) … an appeal.’’  Pray, tell us in what way presenting the appeal before the Lausanne court hurts the interest of Sri Lanka boxing?  Surely, were the appeal won, the benefits to the country’s boxing would be incalculable. And failure, well, the appeal’s retraction represents failure – and is as good as an admission of guilt.
But the statement is at pains to make out that the retraction is not admitting to guilt, saying that no prohibited substance was knowingly administered to him, and that some documents relating to the chain of custody (i.e. the recordings by the different officials handling the urine sample test) were missing, which means tampering of the sample is a possibility. The statement adds the missing documents in the chain of custody was “a vital factor’’ that went to decide a verdict in favor of sportsmen in many similar cases previously. So, the decision to withdraw his appeal “in the interest of boxing’’ rings of naivety at best or at worst, bears the sign of being a product of some intriguing backroom maneuver.
Given the ambiguity surrounding the appeal’s withdrawal, it is excusable to suspect two possibilities for the boxer’s surprising change of heart. The first suspicion that springs to mind is that Wanniarachchi finally decided to own up to the truth –he took performance enhancing drugs. After all, no admission of guilt is prompt – and not Marion Jones, not Ben Johnson or any other famed athlete said “yes I was on drugs’’ no sooner than his/her first test showed up positive. Jones made her confession years later and returned the medals she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics some six-seven long years later. If the suspicion that Wanniarachchi had admitted to taking a banned drug is true then, you can’t be too hard on the boxer for playing the old familiar game of denial-and-admission these past few months.
Suspicion no.2 stems from the government’s determination to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Hambantota. Some Rs.250 million has been splashed on the bid alone – so it’s understandable why the government would want nothing to impede the chances of securing the Games – and, perhaps, perceived the boxer’s appeal to the Lausanne court would hurt Hambantota bid. Hence, the suspicion that powerful government figures might have forced the boxer to withdraw his appeal.  The fact that the Sport Ministry had, weeks ago, intimated to the CGF that it accepts the verdict of the Commonwealth Games court (that Wanniarachchi had taken performance-enhancing drugs) not only lent some strength to this suspicion, but it also dented the chances of success in the Lausanne appeal – which, perhaps, might’ve forced a re-assessment of the feasibility of presenting such an appeal, resulting in its withdrawal. “It is hard to see the Lausanne court disregard the Sport Ministry’s acceptance of the CG court’s verdict – and the ministerial admission pretty much took the winds out of Wanni’s sails,’’ said a former ABA official.
It has to be reminded that these are only suspicions. ABA officials won’t say anything more than what is scripted in the statement, while the Sport Ministry maintains the boxer’s appeal has no bearing on the Hambantota bid – in other words, whether the boxer’s appeal is taken to Lausanne or not is of no concern to the ministry, period. So, the gold medal the country had waited for 72 long years was ours to have and hold for just about a month. This lament is not to infer that the Lausanne court (had we gone before it) would’ve given back the gold for keeps. But even if the outcome of the Lausanne appeal proved no different, Sri Lanka boxing at least would’ve been spared the regret of not using all the available options to try and reclaim the won-and-lost gold.
The one consolation to come out of this sad saga is the return of an elected administration for boxing. It will be recalled that the Sport Ministry disallowed the March 28 AGM of the ABA. A committee comprising of three inconsequential Sport Ministry officials were appointed, but boxing has been at a standstill since March. The Sport Ministry, the Sunday Leader understands, now wants the ABA AGM conducted, pronto – why? There’s no Lausanne appeal, silly.