Well-known swimmer and coach Julian Bolling has decided to resign from his post of Invitee to the Executive Committee of the Sri Lanka Amateur Aquatic Sports Union (SLAASU).

Bolling has been with the swimming Interim Committee since 2005 and in his resignation letter, he has mentioned that he would not be attending to any functions of the SLAASU Ex-Co, or be part of the Union in any capacity.

He says in his letter: "We as a swimming community was then facing hardships (in 2005) with the elected body of the SLAASU, where gross injustices were taking place towards the swimmers on a regular basis. Some examples are postponing of the meets such as the Short Course and Long Course Nationals that were postponed in 2005 approximately one to two weeks before the meet at the request of a few favoured swimmers of the Association and then the National Coach.

Selecting Swimmers for International Meets: Participants for the world championships in Montreal 2005 were selected without proper criteria laid and without prior notice, in order for the swimmers to train for the championship. In this instance the Ministry of Sports was able to intervene and solve the problem and allow merit to prevail in selecting swimmers.

"As a result of all these injustices taking place at the cost of innocent swimmers, the Minister then dissolved the Association and replaced it with the present interim committee of which I was appointed as a member, until my appointment by the present Sports Minister to the National Sports Council."

Commonwealth Games in 2006 was the very first International meet that this interim committee had to get involved in and, according to Bolling, the committee has messed up things in selections. When Bolling has seen, according to his letter, the names of the athletes who had been proposed for selection, he had been shocked.

The reason given was that the criteria used to select the divers for this event was only being the winners of the National Championships of the previous year where only a handful would compete, while the swimmers had to achieve times that were within five percent (5%) from the Gold medal time of the previous Commonwealth Games.

When ‘Sunday Island’ contacted Samantha Wickrmasinghe, General Secretary, Executive Committee of the SLAASU, he said: "I must say he doesn’t have a post in the Executive Committee. There are no postponements of any meets after we came into control. What Bolling says is completely wrong. We at the committee have been fair by all the swimmers."