Suranga hitting the bull’s eye
Following the footsteps of his father, Suranga Fernando an old Cambrian is going great guns in the sports discipline of Pistol Shooting.Suranga’s
Suranga in action at the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow
father, Manjula Fernando, a retired Army officer had represented Sri Lanka in numerous championships from 1993 to 2000. At the SAARC games in 1995 Manjula won medals in the team events is the light behind his sons’ successes.
Seeing his father in action at the Army firing range Suranga was intelligent enough to pick the basics of pistol shooting at a very young age of 13 years.
In his maiden appearance in the shooting national championship in 1999 at the age of 13 years Suranga won the gold medal in the under 21 junior event. This youngster from the calypso town of Moratuwa never looked back from that point onwards. Suranga had been awarded with National Championships in Junior men’s category since 1999 and was awarded 43 Gold Medals at national level. He had won much Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in Men’s Pistol events in National and All Island open championships in 10m Air
Suranga (R) with his father and mentor Manjula (L)
Pistol events, 25m Standard Pistol event and 50m pistol event. The door for international exposure was opened for Suranga when he was selected to the national pool in three events.In 2012 at the National Pistol Champions Trophy Suranga swept the board by winning three Gold medals in three pistol shooting events and carried on to win the national championship in 2013. At the Navy Open Shooting meet this young man won the Best Performers Trophy in 2014 and in the same year he proved his prowess when he won the Best Performers Trophy at the ISSF Open Meet. This year too Suranga came out with another sterling performance to win three Gold Medals in the Navy Open 2015.
These national level achievements lent a big hand for Suranga to keep the National Flag flying at international meets when he held the Air Pistol record at the Asian Shooting championship since year 2000 and was awarded Gold Medal in International Level. Representing Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England at the age of 16 years went from strength to strength to record the best personnel score of 566 at the Center Five to secure 14th place at the meet. At the SAARC games in Sri Lanka in 2006 Suranga had a big hand in winning a bronze team medal in the Center Five event and in Bangladesh Suranga helped Sri Lanka to bag three Team Bronze medals and won the Individual Bronze medal to finish 3rd in the meet. This young shooter became the highest ranker of the Sri Lanka Shooting team to rank 10 just two points being the Bronze medallist.
Suranga possess the prerequisite qualities for a pistol shooter in intense hand-eye coordination, deadly concentration, and nerves of steel and his main ambition is to represent Sri Lanka in the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games and to bring pride to his motherland by winning golds and to take Sri Lanka to the highest point in world shooting fraternity.
Apart from thanking his father for his early guidance Suranga was humble to mention his employer MAS Intimates Slimline for their sponsorship and paid a huge tribute to Dion Gomez, Zaal Chitty, Col Daya Nadarajasingham, and Col Pasan Kularatne for their help and encouragement which made things easy for Suranga to come this far.