Racing through the tide: The story of Lakmal Dissanayake

Lakmal practices next to his parked land dozer

By Surya Vishwa 

It is probably a valid assumption to make, that if cycle medallist Lakmal Dissanayake was in another country, he may not have the fate of living in a make shift house, struggling for even the basic necessities for his young family, let alone for his race training.

A cycling champion consecutively in the mid from 2000 to 2005, the lack of a systematic national policy based support for upcoming sportspersons of this country forced him to abandon the sport he had excelled at, having even represented Sri Lanka for foreign tournaments. 

“I was always between the placements of 1st and 3rd for many years till 2005 when I decided to stop sports having to earn for my newly married wife and young children,” he said.

For the past years although he had practised for his racing, he had not taken on racing, having started a self-made one-man industry of driving a dozer and making a living for his family by undertaking large projects such as land clearing for construction and digging the earth for creating waterfronts such as wew.

Having done many of his work as a service free of charge especially for rural temples and places of worship he narrates how his entire equipment and clothes connected to cycling were given away to other sportsmen, especially in rural areas.

“I did not sell them. I have had thoughtful people assisting me during the early days of my cycling career and I reciprocated in the same manner giving away to others who I needed as a cyclist when I stopped racing to make ends meet for my family. I have heard how other countries support sportspersons who are struggling and although I do not want to complain that this is not there in Sri Lanka, my dream is to get more land clearing work so that I could even in a small way start helping the next generation of cyclists so that they do not have to suffer the way I am still doing after nearly 30 years of cycling,” he states. 

Having taken up cycling for racing once again upon the encouragement of some of those who know his sporting talent, and his children, he is preparing for his second and third race for this year to be held on 6 and 13 November. 

“Cycling requires both physical stamina and willpower. As I do not require any extra vitamins or food supplements recommended for physical fitness, what I rely on fully is my mind power. This is the same for the dozer and tractor driving that I do – when clearing and digging land there is heavy physical exertion and one has to continue for hours on end – I do all this alone and very rarely get an assistant – so the strength needed for this work and racing is very much similar. The difference is, in land clearing, I have had to many times grapple with killer elephants of the wild and in racing it is far safer,” he laughs. 

What is striking about him is a deep philosophical nature in his approach to sports, livelihood and family.

“I made a conscious decision when I got married and for a while I had to be dedicated to this life. My commitment to start racing again is when my four-year-old daughter was born. She is one of my biggest fans and she is more excited for me to start racing again than any of us,” he says. 

His daughter Umaya, with all the positivity of her four-year-old world, tells me that he is going to win on the 6th and that she is also going to race with him! Her 16-year-old gentle faced brother Dinuka smiles and brushes off a fierce frown, tug and a whisper from Umaya who tries to ask him what I assume are the arrangements for her to race with her father. Then she tugs at my hair and informs that she too is going to get a medal and brings a handful of her father’s medals which he had won and places them in my hands. 

I am meeting Lakmal and his family seated at his small home made out of cloth and plastic, down 4th Cross Street in Kotte off Nugegoda where although they have the family-inherited land, there is no means to build a house.

I do not ask too much about the stark poverty that I witness because in my mind’s eye I am seeing an immense human wealth of a nation, unrecognised and trampled upon and I do not want them to feel dispirited as they carry a flicker of hope for the upcoming race. 

“My Thathi will bring me a small cake when he wins,” smiles Umaya.

“I have returned to racing to be an example to my two young children – who are also keen to take to racing and also because I want to ascertain my identity to them – I am a cyclist and however bad the situation has been I am that,” Lakmal explains. 

His is a story that stands against the odds at unbelievable levels.

His wife shares with me that after the rise of the fuel costs and his obtaining of land clearing work came to a standstill and for four months that they can barely put food on the table. 

“There is a cycling enthusiast who provided us with a sack of coconuts the last few months and we are prevented from starving by making sambol and eating with scarce amounts of rice. It is with this diet that I am training,” he states. 

This writer, having first-hand witnessed his family’s living conditions, especially in the backdrop of the rain, where the entire makeshift house was flooded, went beyond the journalistic call of duty to contact Kushil Gunasekera of the Foundation of Goodness known to me, to ask if he could send his staff over to this cyclist’s home to ascertain the basic requirements to sustain the family at least until the upcoming race events are over and he manages to look for more land clearing work.

It is likely that the Foundation for Goodness may assist in whatever means they can, to assist in the immediate cycling requirements or at least to provide some dry rations.

Having made up his mind to start the racing life once again after a gap of a couple of years meant that being generous by nature, he had given away his cycle and even his training kits to others who were in need at the time.

“I was successful in earning to keep my family clothed and fed and to pay up the loan for the dozer in the past 10 years but unfortunately my return to racing comes amidst the current economic crisis and right now I am keeping to my aim of using the next couple of years for racing as a mark of willpower – which I want to bequeath to my children,” states Lakmal.

Yet training for racing is no small commitment. It requires cycling for at least 70 kilometres a day.

“Because we received a donation of a sack of coconuts, even in this totally jobless state I make him sambol and rice and somehow he carried out his training,” says his wife Harshini. 

She points to the large dozer he uses for his work that now lies idle in front of the temporary shelter that they call home. 

“We did not want to trouble our family members as they said there is no room in their home and we are in this shelter and we pray for protection during heavy rains and for our children not to get sick,” she says.

There are different cycling races that Lakmal has contested over the years and he explains that his taking part in private races is through cycling clubs, 

“There are different cycling clubs that one can contest from. I used to earlier contest from the Battaramulla Peace Club formed by sports enthusiast and philanthropist Sanjeeva Muttiah who has done a lot to promote Sri Lankan cyclists to the world,” says Lakmal. After he had stopped racing he had lost contact with Muttiah and asks me if this publication could lead to connect with him.

“From all the people who supported me and others in our racing career, Sanjeeva Muttiah was one of the most significant characters I have met. He has gone out of his way to look for international races and I attended the tournament in Malaysia around 2005 with his support. He called it the peace club as I believe it fitted with his values,” he states and shares hopes of one day forming a club of his own with cycling enthusiast and benefactor Dr. D. Suriyarachchi who also supports Sumedha Rathnayake, the cycling medallist from Dambulla whose story we featured last week.

Lakmal explains that he is now contesting from a different club and that the participation in the race is through small teams. 

“There are usually small teams of about four cyclists competing in a race from a club and if one person wins from this team then it is a victory for the team, the club and of course the cyclist,” he explains. 

He is currently competing from a club called ‘The Independent” from Kaduwela. 

The first race he will take part in the month of November is the 40 kilometre race beginning from Kalubowila and on the 13th the over 100 kilometre tournament from Ja-Ela. 

Competing in the above 40 category he states that in a few years he would like to take to coaching young children in both determination in winning as well as ethics of humanity in racing.

In a recent race that he competed in, video evidence exists of a body movement of a fellow cyclist either accidently or otherwise, obstructing his path, tripping him up and causing serious injury. Yet although the incident cost him a victory place in the race and caused grievous injury, Lakmal had not wanted any formal action to be taken on the fellow cycling, giving him the benefit of the doubt that it was an accident and thereby preventing the other cyclist from being disqualified. 

“Sports should be approached with a winning mindset but it should not be an obsession that overrides basic ethics and compassion,” he states.

“As a coach for my children, this is what I wish to instil in minds. This is what I teach them and their friends,” he states. 

Despite all the reason to feel despondent and think of the past as wasted and the future hopeless, as he trains in near hunger, he does not give in to such self-sabotaging feeling. 

“I try not to think that I do not even possess a racing cycle and that I sometimes feel faint as I train. I am practicing and racing on a borrowed cycle of a friend on condition that I will do the repairs and upkeep. Given the current situation and the lack of construction related land clearing work, I am finding it difficult for even for this task,” he states. He asks me to find out if there are any construction work I know of and I reply that I will tell anyone I come across. 

Hailing from the village of Beddegana, apart from cycling, he had from young age showed an unusual ability to create miniature versions of bulldozers and similar equipment as mini replicas without ever having seen them. It is this obsession that made him teach himself to ride these cumbersome vehicles, the handling of which is arduous and challenging. 

Apart from his miniature dozer constructions he had also created cycling related apparatus. During the COVID lockdown, he had created from scratch a training bike which he could train on without having to go outside for training. 

Asked if he would want to apply for a patent for his inventions he states that his intention is to create contraptions that would enable life to be easier and laughs off the application for patents.  

One cannot say what his life would have been if there was recognition for both innovation and sports so that those aspiring in this direction would be able to, as practiced in developed countries, even take a bank loan based on their talent as collateral.

Those who would like to assist Lakmal Dissanayake could reach him at the following address: 347/5B, 4th Cross Street, Kotte Road, Nugegoda, and on the phone number 0766376346/and WhatsApp 0765794178.