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By Allaam Ousman
Sri Lanka’s boxing chief Dian Gomes is a man with a mission. He honestly believes Sri Lanka could win an Olympic medal in boxing. Driven by a corporate zeal and passion to succeed, he has almost single-handedly sparked the revival of a dormant sport in the country. A former junior national middle-weight champion, he has cried at the ringside when Sri Lankan boxers have lost close decisions at international meets. He has his critics but no one can fault him for daring to dream.

“One medal will change the history of boxing,” he declared on the eve of Sri Lanka’s participation at the World Boxing Championships being held in Chicago, USA. “If we put the resources behind then there is more commitment from everybody – the boxers, the coaches, the national mindedness – it is not impossible,” he says.

“We can find lots of critics. But the main thing is to move forward,” said Gomes in a wide-ranging interview, deftly answering questions regarding the performance of boxers, comparison of techniques, criticism regarding standard of judging, etc.

Following are excerpts:
When you took over as ABA president, what were your dreams, hopes and goals?

Four years ago when I took over as president of the Amateur Boxing Association, the first thing I wanted to do was bring the glory of the 1960s and 50s back into the year 2000. The first hurdle was to get a good team and to create a structure for boxing.

So we picked a team which had some experienced people, also with high integrity. My deputy is Maj. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya, the current Wanni SF Commander. I have Lt Col Hemantha Weerasinghe as the secretary and former DIG of Colombo Rohan Abeywardena as another vice-president.

What I also did was to have a completely independent selection committee comprising DIG (Jayakumar) Thangavelu, (Herbert) Embuldeniya who have lot of international experience and K.V. Dharmadasa.

What were the short-term and long-term objectives? Are you happy with what has been achieved under your tenure?

If you look at the last 3-4 years what is the success? The success is boxing has come as a very well-run organisation. Anybody in the sports circle knows it is run like a private organisation, with private sector thinking where key performance indicators are being put, targets set, long term strategy, medium and short-term strategies being put. They work cohesively without looking at small personal gains. This has been the biggest success.

In terms of real boxing we have had limited success. But I can tell you in the first four weights (48kg to 57kg), our Sri Lankans can fight internationally today. Ten years ago they could not last four rounds. Today they can easily fight in the Light Fly, Fly, Bantam and Featherweights..

There is a school of thought that since boxers are now literally well looked after; they lack the hunger for success.

It’s a bit of a myth because nobody gets into the boxing ring to have fun. If you are not fit, not good enough, you can get knocked out and you can injure yourself. I don’t think the boxers go into the ring unprepared. They are virtually on a 5am to 7pm training schedule at Pannala.

What I have done is given them job security and a career for them after boxing which I think as a nationalist you need to do. Because you can’t use people, get them to box and drop them. Life is very tough.

In this modern age of computer judging, why isn’t video technology used to improve standards of boxers and coaching methods?

Actually we have used it at international level. All international fights of Sri Lanka boxers are filmed and shown to them. I have been actually grieved with some of the coaches. They need to drive it a little fast, specially our younger coaches. Our best talent is Wasantha Kumar. Then we have the experienced Indrasena and Amila Tissera. A few of the younger coaches are good. They need to be sent to an Australian Academy to look at videos and teach, to look at some of the new techniques.

Am I happy with judging? I’m very unhappy with judging. I can see when Embuldeniya, senior members of the Boxing Association and I are there, boxing becomes unbiased. But when the senior members of the boxing association are not there, there are a lot of biased decisions which really upset me. But this year we are going to take some action. Anybody who’s responsible for lousy judging is going to taken out. We are going to enforce discipline.

What do you have to say to critics who point out that we are still lagging behind Asian standards despite your best efforts?

Boxing is a very tough game. For example only 20 countries play cricket whereas there are 200 countries in boxing. The other reason why we have got limited success is because next to Cuba and Russia, the best boxing nations are in Asia – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan (former Russian republics), Korea, Japan, Thailand, Philippines and even India now.
But I think we must never give up if you’ve got the heart to do it.