Fifty years ago when cyclist Trevor won a bronze medal in Asian Games

Source: 9th December Daily News

The Sri Lankans Cycling fans along with Trevor de Silva will be celebrating 50 year old Sri Lanka sporting record. On the 17th of December 1966 former Sebastianite and Old Josephian Trevor de Silva won a Bronze Medal at the Asian Games in Bangkok. It was the very first occasion that a Sri Lankan won a medal in the Asian Games and since then a Sri Lankan Cyclist has never ever won an International Cycling Medal.

There were six of Asia’s best and fastest cyclists with one Olympic Medalist and in the lane six was Sri Lanka’s Star Rider 24 year old Trevor de Silva and what was going through his mind as he was pitted against the cream of Asia’s cyclists. On that hot and humid day in Bangkok the Lake House reporter Carlton Senevirathna interviewed him and asked from this young man about his chances of winning a medal and his answer was full of confidence and not ignorance and he said, “I have trained extremely hard for the last three years and over the last three weeks in Bangkok and also trained with the Chinese and Japanese Squads and have observed them closely and confident of winning the race.”

At the start of the first lap it was a disaster for Trevor and the cyclists were moving in excess of 50 km per hour when a touch of wheels center rider in front of him crashing to the ground and whose cycle bounced up in the air and hit Trevor. The impact threw him off his bike injuring his hand and broke his collar bone and to the amazement of the crowd Trevor immediately picked himself up and gave chase to win a Bronze Medal and became Sri Lanka’s first ever Medalist in International Cycling. If not for that unfortunate incident it was very likely that he would have won the race and a Gold for his motherland.

Fifty years to the day most Sri Lankan cyclists have not even come closer in equalling this unique record. He is not the most successful cyclist at International level but he is also the Most Celebrated Cyclist in 1967 as he was voted by the public as the Runner Up to Marathon Runner the great Lucien Rosa in the Sports Star of the Year Contest. In the year 2008 he received National Sporting Award from the Ministry of Sports at the BMICH and in 2014 he and his wife Anne were invited by the Sri Lankan Government to the grand opening of the new sports complex at the Ministry of Sports where he was awarded a Gold Medal by the former Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a life time achievement.

Trevor won numerous races in the 1960’s. At the age of 21 he was the first cyclist to win the three major tours in the space of twelve months. Lake House sponsored Tour de Lanka, Tour of the Hills and the Tour of the Valley. His training partners were Late Maurice Coomaravel, Desmond Gunawardena, Trevor Newman, Jeffrey Mason and his Asian Games team mates Mike Hassan and Ivon Gamage. Trevor is domiciled in England with his wife and at the age of 43 years he ran a marathon in under two hours and 40 minutes.