Some sporting records are broken within minutes while others stand for decades. When a record stays unbroken for over five decades, it has to be very special. This is the Asian Games cycling record of former St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa and St. Joseph’s College, Colombo cyclist Trevor de Silva presently domiciled in England. It was back in 1966 that he won two bronze medals in Bangkok. Many in the cycling world believe that this achievement is so far ahead of its time, that it might stand for many more years and some think that it might never be broken.
Trevor’s cycling career started as a schoolboy when he won the National Championships and was selected to represent Sri Lanka when he was just 17 years old. He went on to win several prestigious races and at the age of 21 was the first rider to win the three major tours - Lake House sponsored Tour de Lanka and Tour of the Hills, and the Tour of the Valley all within twelve months. Trevor migrated to the UK in 1969 where he qualified as a Chartered Engineer and then a Masters in Business Administration.
Trevor trained about 800km a week for three years before the Asian Games. He had excellent training partners such as the late great Maurice Coomaravel (his mentor), Trevor Newman, Jeffrey Mason, Desmond Goonewardena, and his other Asian Games team mates Ivan Gamage and Mike Hassan. Trevor believed in training smarter. He trained twice a day every day. Sometimes he trained three times a day. Each training ride had a specific aim: His main endurance ride was over 200km which he did once a week. His strength training was a combination of on the bike and off the bike. To improve his aerobic capacity he rode behind a moped for one hour at 50kph. His general speed work was with Maurice Coomaravel. His sprint training was behind Coomaravel’s motor bike up to 80kph. Trevor’s greatest asset was his self belief. He always believed he could win an Asian Games medal. Winning national races was secondary to self improvement.
In his own words “To win a race, I only had to beat the rider who was second. To win a medal, I had to keep beating myself.” That is exactly what he did. Every year for three years getting better, faster and stronger.
Trevor was an automatic choice for the Asian Games in Bangkok in 1966. After the heats and semi-finals, six world class Asian cyclists, including an Olympic medallist, lined up for the final. There was also Sri Lanka’s star rider 24 year old Trevor de Silva. At the start the cyclists were picking up speed and doing about 50kph. There was a touch of wheels and a rider in front of Trevor crashed to the ground. His cycle bounced off the ground and hit Trevor around the upper body cracking his collar bone and badly injuring his hand. While the other rider was taken to the medical centre, Trevor quickly remounted and after furious chase won Sri Lanka’s first ever medal in international cycling. A few days later and heavily bandaged and right hand strapped to the handlebars and displaying unbelievable courage and grim determination Trevor won a second bronze medal. The last Sri Lankan medal for over half a century! Two of our former Lake House colleagues witnessed this great event - the late Carlton Seneviratne and late Leslie Fernando they were of the view that if not for this accident Trevor would have won the Gold medal.
In 1971 Trevor was selected for the Munich Olympics 1972 having achieved 3hrs 58min for the 160km Road Race and 52min for the 40km Time Trial. But by early 1972 he had lost the passion for the hard training and he had other plans such as to go into coaching. His chance of winning an Olympic medal with ‘only’ 500km a week of training was slim, so he withdrew from the team. In 2008 de Silva and Coomaravel received prestigious National Sporting Awards at the BMICH. They are also featured in the unique book, Sri Lanka Proud - A Tribute to Champions. In 2014 Trevor and his wife Anne were invited by the Sri Lankan government to the grand opening of the new National Sports Centre where he received a Gold Medal from the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a life time achievement, the highest civilian honour in the country.
At the age of 75, Trevor is still passionate about coaching and training. He is a UK Athletics Level 4 Performance Coach. Trevor and his wife Anne run a small sports training business called ExecFit Training Academy focusing on Running, Cycling and Fitness. Trevor’s main function is structuring Personalised Training Plans for runners and cyclists. This includes advice on Nutrition and Injury Prevention though Core Strength and Sports Conditioning. He still applies his Smarter Training principles with great success. The Running Academy has been based at the Maiden Centre in New Maiden since 1987. ExecFit Training caters for beginners as well as the more experienced. They have several national level runners and two overseas marathon runners who hope to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Anne, also a qualified running coach runs Fitness and Walking groups. Trevor has weekly run training sessions for Hercules Wimbledon AC and Wimbledon Windmilers Running Club. ExecFit Training has a new scheme to develop young runners from about eighteen years. They will be directed and guided over a two to six year development cycle to reach a National UK standard or higher. They are hoping to have a squad of three men and three women.
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