Sahan to represent sri Lanka at Wong Cup Festival

Sahan Sachinda Rathnayake, joins the Sri Lankan badminton team leaving for South Korea tomorrow to represent Sri Lanka at the 12 day ‘Wongu Cup 2010’ international sports festival which is held to promote peace and friendship among youth in different parts of the world.

Sahan started his badminton at St. Anne’s College. Kurunegala when he was in the sixth standard. Recognizing the talents and performances, Sahan was called to Joseph Vass College, Wennappuwa by Indika Sheevan who was then the school’s badminton coach. During this period Sahan had won several Provincial and Open Badminton titles under the age categories of 15 and 17.

Witnessing the performances shown by him in a schools open tournament played in Wennappuwa, Luvi Karunaratne who was a senior Official in SLBA at that time gave Sahan an opportunity to attend National Badminton Junior Pool practices. This opened up the path for Sahan to be selected to Ananda College, Colombo.

During 2008 and 2009 Sahan performed very well and especially so far in the year 2010 Sahan was very successful delivering many outstanding results in badminton. Some of the key achievements are as follows:

• Represented Sri Lanka at the World Junior Badminton Championship held in April 2010 in Guadalajara, Mexico with Three other players: Dilshan, Minimuthu and Malinaka
• Champion of the under 19 boys singles event in the all island age group badminton championship organized by the University of Moratuwa in July 2010
• Champion of under 19 boys singles and doubles (partnerered by Malinka Ranasinghe) events in the All Island Open Badminton Championship organized by SSC in August 2010
• Champion of the under 19 boys singles and doubles (partnerered by Dilshan Kariyawasam) events in the Badminton Junior Nationals Championship-2010, organized by Sri Lanka Schools Badminton Association.

Sahan is the only son of Capt (Rtd.) Jayantha Ratnayake who too has excelled at sports. Furthermore Sahan is the grandson of former Capt. Nihal Nilaweera who had a brilliant career in sports at S. Thomas’ College, Mt Lavinia in the mid sixties.

(www.dailymirror.lk)