The making of a champion

Niluka Karunaratne’s selection for the 2012 London Olympics has great significance because he has achieved this feat by getting rated within the top 50 singles players in the world.

Niluka has been the ‘king of badminton’ in Sri Lanka for a while. However, critics often posed the question whether the champ could reach international heights due to the lack of competition for him in Sri Lanka. After many attempts at qualifying for the Olympics, the 27-year-old finally made the grade this year thanks to a marathon run he had in contesting 13 international tournaments from which he emerged the victor on five occasions. Many, including some of his friends who are professional badminton players, opined that he’ll not make it to the 2012 Olympics. "Niluka never lost focus of his goal which was the Olympics," Louvie Karunaratne, his father, told Sunday Island Sportstar.

Louvie, Niluka’s mentor, who also plays a role in his son’s coaching, said that his son was confident of his Olympic berth many months ago even though the official announcement was made only last week. The World Badminton Federation ratings as at May 3 (the day the list of Olympians in badminton was made public) revealed that the Sri Lankan was rated 47th, the furthest a male badminton player from this island has progressed in world rankings.

Niluka’s plea is for the Sri Lanka Badminton Federation to provide him with more help and offer him the services of a foreign coach. He said he is playing his best badminton at the moment and added, "I have never felt so confident in my badminton career. I am training six hours a day like a professional. The big challenge now is to be in form because there is over two months more for the games," Niluka said.

His father said that the world hasn’t seen the best of Niluka as yet and that his son was expected to hit his peak before the Olympics.

According to Louvie, Niluka gets up at 4.30 am in the morning and has his first training session at the SLBA courts in Colombo. He has lunch at 1pm and is back again for more training at 4.pm. He returns home around 7.30 pm, arranges all what he needs the next day and says his prayers for the second time of the day before retiring to bed by 9pm. He expects silence to be maintained there onwards and all members of the family comply without a fuss because they all know it is a must to contribute towards a champion’s cause.

Louvie said that Niluka could have qualified for the Olympics in 2004, but lack of support prevented him from seeing his dream come true. In 2008 he was knocking on the door for an Olympic slot again, but Niluka contacted Chikungunya which forced him to shelf his ideas of making the Sri Lanka contingent for the Beijing Olympics in China. In his third attempt he succeeded, but that was a grueling task of working his way up in the rankings from 147 to 47. Some badminton experts in the world are still baffled how he did it! "He surely has to be one of the fastest to qualify for the Olympics because he did it in about five months" said Louvie.

Louvie, a former badminton player himself and an ex-SLBF official, said that if players with talent like Niluka are spotted and nurtured, the sport of badminton had the potential to produce champions and be more popular than cricket in this country. "We must acknowledge that it was after the 1996 cricket world cup victory that money started to come in to all sports in Sri Lanka. But if an analysis is made on the earnings of an international cricketer and a player who wins a couple of titles at the Badminton Super Series, the shuttler definitely makes a lot more money during a year," said Niluka’s father. Louvie said it was with great difficulty that he was funding Niluka’s needs in badminton. He was quick to mention the generous sponsorship that has been afforded to his son by Rohan de Silva of Mclarence Group of Companies.

Louvie said all that fame has not changed his son. "He will go out of his way to help people. At times he is so generous he’ll give whatever he has to others. When he goes to eat out he looks around if there is someone he knows whom he can buy meal. He is open to ideas and corrects himself. The only concern is that he has no life outside badminton, but then this is one of the demands when playing like a professional," his father said.

Niluka is at present training under the watchful eyes of a Malaysian coach at the SLBF courts in Colombo. ‘We can’t forget the inputs made to Niluka’s career by coaches like Pushpakumara, Pradeep Welagedara, Shrimal Aponsu and SLBF coach Dhanushka Fernando, " said Louvie.

Many Sri Lankans have been part of the island’s contingent during past Olympics. Some just made the numbers without proper training and for some the Games served them with vital experience. What are Niluka’s goals at the upcoming Olympics? "It is difficult to talk about goals right now because the draw for the Games is not out yet. But come what may, Niluka plans to give a good fight to whoever his opponent may be," said Louvie.

In 2003 Niluka was praised for performances against Chinese player Chen Jin (Present world ranking 4th) at the World Juniors, where he went down fighting in a three-setter. A leading badminton magazine paid a tribute to the Sri Lankan by referring him to uncut diamond’. That diamond has been cut and polished over the years and is ready for exhibition among other diamonds of the world.

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