Dear media, athlete, Olympian, student, teacher, doctor, parent, politician, activist, religious figure, CEO, tourist, traveler, dreamer, believer, anyone and everyone.

Dear Sri Lanka, 

Why am I writing this in the form of a letter? Why am I writing this in first person? Why am I directly addressing YOU? 

For the technical reasons, for the effect. To make sure what I’m about to say touches you, and will stay with you in the future. To make you understand, to make you feel for them. To make you sympathize. To make you feel the sheer disappointment and despair I felt and could not explain nor comprehend for a very long time. 

The performance of Sri Lankan athletes at the Olympics. Contrary to public opinion, my despair wasn’t with our athletes and their performance, but with the nation’s response— how we responded, specifically how the media responded and how we all fed off of that illusion.

My heart broke for the athletes. For the lack of support we showed them through one of the toughest competitions during some of the toughest times. 

Let me start this from the very beginning. 

Culture and tradition. Toxic culture. Dream-shattering culture. The culture that states “when in doubt go be a doctor”, “when in doubt go be a lawyer”, “when in doubt go be an engineer”, “you have to be the best— no days off”. Please don’t misunderstand me, not all Sri Lankan cultures and traditions result in some unfortunate opinions. In fact, culture is what makes Sri Lanka so special! The fact that culture and our history is intertwined in everything we do. From school, to jobs, to celebrations, to the way we dress. However the culture associated with sport is something that desperately needs some type of dialogue. 

I envy world-class athletes. I will say that with pride because I think that’s a good thing. I’ve seen the hard work and dedication that goes into achieving what they’ve achieved. Whether it’s an invitation, qualification, or a medal, all of that needs recognition, recognition comes from putting yourself out there and at the core of that is courage and hunger. The fearlessness of giving yourself to the world, and experiencing things no one’s had the privilege to experience. The hunger that comes from wanting something not only for yourself but for your country, for your supporters and even if it’s one person, for that one person you inspire to always keep reaching no matter what is said about you. World-class athletes have fought the stigmas, they’ve fought they stereotypes, and are now doing what they love. Not everyone has the privilege or strength to do that.

We cannot understand. We cannot possibly understand. We don’t know what it’s like—to love something so much you’d sacrifice everything for it, dedicate your entire life to that one single thing. Your parent’s forcing will only work for a few years— let’s say until you’re 16. After that other activities, experiences, and opportunities will catch your eye, and it is at that point where everyone will see who really loves what they’re doing, who falls out of love of what they were doing, or who has been forced to do what they were doing. At the core it’s passion. It’s passion that will carry you on. It’s passion that helps you get up at 4:00am. It’s passion that helps you come to terms with skipping a best friend’s birthday party. Its passion that keeps you motivated on a bad day. It’s passion that keeps you going. The biggest sin anyone can ever do is dictate where someone else’s passion should lie, support each other. Don’t tear each other down. Please. We cannot understand.

I’m speaking out about this because being a recreational athlete myself, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to experience a little fraction of what our athletes experience. I’ve caught a glimpse of what happens behind the interviews, behind the podium pictures, behind the posts. Behind all that is the hard work, commitment, and respect. The cliched “blood, sweat, and tears.” There’s sleepless nights, there’s pain, injury, there’s heartbreak, there’s the stress of unfinished homework, there are bad days, unopened DM’s, loneliness, the hope that something better is coming—reliving that feeling of euphoria to motivate yourself. The emotional barriers. The anxiety and depression that comes from repetition, the stress from school; your teachers saying you can never be successful “focus on your studies”, the need to do well; to exceed everyone’s expectations— and when you don’t, you go under fire from an entire nation. I am so sorry you went through that. I am so sorry you felt like no one cared about you.

To our athletes. Thank you. Thank you for waving our flag high. Thank you for what you’re doing. I’m here to tell you that I care. That I really care. Indirectly you’ve taught me the power of resilience and determination. The beauty of doing something you really love. Commitment. At one of my lowest points, a very established swimmer in Sri Lanka joined a zoom meeting with the team I was swimming and training with at the time. Something he said was— and I remember this word to word—“when you hit rock bottom you have two choices: you can either stay there or you can work your way up from there.” As cliched as that line can be, those words brought tears to my eyes. It made me suddenly want to flip my entire life around. I can’t even begin to explain the power those few words had on me— it was almost felt miraculous to say the least. These athletes are so insanely self-motivated saying it’s inspiring would be an understatement, and then you think “no wonder they do so well”. After that, nothing mattered. Everyone else’s opinions slowly became the soft whispers in a rap song, the only thing that mattered to me was what I was happy doing. That’s what I admire the most, thank you for teaching me that— all of you have been figures of strength and finesse since day one. As humans I think our biggest downfall is that we care too much about what people think about us and that in-turn causes us to limit ourselves. Something I’ve seen in these athletes is that they don’t care. Thank you for not caring. It is when you start to do things for yourself, that’s when you win. However somethings cannot go unnoticed.

So to the people and media outlets that belittled our athletes, criticizing their efforts, calling them “pathetic”—you don’t know, and frankly you never will know. You aren’t in a position to set the standard for “what’s not good enough”. In fact many people reading this article right know will not know including myself, none of us have been in their positions except. for. them. I’d also like to point out there was some false information spread, the athletes did not chose to leave 48 hours after their event and willingly miss the closing ceremony, they were asked to leave because of COVID-19 guidelines put in place, please stop painting them as selfish, heartless human beings who do not care about their country. They do. They’re already doing so much more than majority of us. 

I truly feel a sense of pity for the journalists and people who are not able to see the true value our athletes possess—the values we as athletes and youngsters can clearly see. What is really “pathetic” is seeing you dispirit our athletes when you should be using your platforms to support them, completely ignoring the circumstances they were under, the preparation for the past few years of their entire life leading up to the olympics, going to sleep every night dreaming about the day they qualify, every competition they participated in, every single medal they’ve won in the past— you completely ignored. It’s safe to say you almost ruined their childhood dream. Almost.

These athletes are better than your words and opinions, which is exactly why they’ll come back so much harder next time— maybe then the wording of your comments, Instagram posts, articles, and conversations will change. If you think your words have caused them pain— maybe, if you think you’ve brought them down, if you think you’ve inflicted shame on them, if you thought this article will “put them in their places”—absolutely not. Your naivete has resulted in everyone forgetting they are also human. They have emotions and bad days. Not every day is going to be sunshine and rainbows, just like us, even on the biggest days things can go wrong— and that is completely okay although you made it seem like it’s not. Of course they’re not going to win all the time, they’re HUMAN. So please, when the bad days do come please don’t rip them apart, instead hold them up. You cannot diminish their fire, you cannot shatter their dream.

Leaving that aside, I’d like to commend and take a moment to say thank you to all the other media outlets that celebrated our athletes as well as the athletes from other countries. To all the individuals that took to their Instagram to express their support for our athletes and disappointment for their portrayal— thank you for your fearlessness and courage. 

From now on I’m humanely asking everyone show a little bit of kindness and love to our athletes and future athletes. Whether you’re an adult, educator, or parent— you will never know what your child/student will be good at if you don’t let them explore, if you don’t let them truly bloom. Let them dream, never tell them their dreams are too big. If they’re happy support them, please don’t take their happiness away from them to please society. When they’re down, be there for them and listen to them. I stand with the fact that sport really can juice hard work, sport really shows you what hard work is because it takes advantage of both your physical and mental aptitudes. Sport is not a 9-5 job. Success should not be measured according to how many people you please, or the money you make, or how perfectly you fit into society— none of that matters if you’re not happy. Success should be measured in relation to how happy and pleased you are with yourself. Have no regrets. From the very bottom of my heart I’d like to say the lessons sport teaches you is completely and utterly priceless, it can truly change your life like it did for me. It’s never too late to start change, change is desperately needed.

Even if it’s just a handful, there’s a handful of us that care, there’s a handful of us who are patient, there’s a handful of us who will always believe in you.You guys are truly superstars, medal or not, we are so proud of you. Thank you for everything and for representing this small island with so much grace and integrity— we cherish you.

Yours truly, 

The girl who will always be sitting on the coffee table in front of the T.V, legs crossed, hands up in the air, phone recording, texting her friends to turn their T.V’s on, jumping, screaming in pure admiration and ecstasy whispering “You got this!”,

The girl you’ve inspired to push a little harder, fight a little more, and will always be proud no matter what,

Chathma Punchihewa