Proud Sri Lanka athletes defy crisis to fulfil Games dreams

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan badminton champion Niluka Karunaratne heads to England next week to cap his Commonwealth Games career where it began - a swansong almost derailed by his bankrupt country's bruising economic crisis.

Competition organisers and Sri Lanka's cricket board are funding the island nation's largest Games contingent, with 114 athletes flying to Birmingham in the coming days alongside coaches and support staff.

Local sports federations have been bled dry by Sri Lanka's financial crash, leaving athletes in doubt in recent weeks over whether they would be able to compete at all.

"Sport has been our lives, it would have been a big, big disappointment," said Karunaratne, a three-time Olympian who has appeared at every Commonwealth Games since his debut as a teenager at Manchester in 2002.

"Fortunately the sports ministry and the national cricket board did a great, great job to somehow find the funds," the 37-year-old told AFP.

Sri Lanka has weathered months of food and fuel shortages, blackouts and runaway inflation in the wake of its worst financial crash on record.

Public anger over the downturn this month saw a huge crowd storm the home and office of the country's president, who then fled abroad and resigned.

Sports federations were hit hard by the crisis after already seeing their coffers drained during the COVID-19 pandemic, which obliterated athletic sponsorships from local businesses.

Federations were left without enough cash to pay for athlete uniforms and plane tickets at a time when a post-pandemic travel bounce has driven up the cost of airfares.

Dampath Fernando, the Sri Lankan team's chef de mission, said administrators had lobbied for support in their determination to do everything they could to give the