Sri Lankan-born physio going great guns Down Under
As a juvenile, young Kusal Goonewardena had to globetrot along with his family with his father being an engineer who worked for the United Nations. Within his first nine years, Goonewardena grew up in Zambia, England, Oman and Bangladesh, before his parents decided to settle down permanently in the land Down Under.
Moving on with his new life, along with his younger brother Kapila, Goonewardena, unknown to many in his native country, Sri Lanka, has achieved what usually here would be a not-so usual profession.
Goonewardena slightly remembers his early days at Nalanda College, but cemented his career after studying at the University of Melbourne and earning his Masters in Sports Physiotherapy at La Trobe University, also in Melbourne. He presently heads and manages the Elite Akademy Sports Medicine, where a well qualified team of physiotherapists, massage therapists, collaborative medical team and researchers while contributing by lectures, consultations and mentorships programmes in many countries.
His team of over 20 looks after over 200 of Australia’s best athletes who compete in the National Championships, World Championships, Winter and Summer Olympics. But what highlights Goonewardena this time during the year is his involvement in the ongoing Australian Open (AO) tennis championship. The 45-year-old APA-titled physiotherapy expert, leads the Medical team of Germany’s tennis star Laura Siegemund, currently ranked 51st in the world.
Kusal Goonewardena, proudly displaying his access card to the Australian Open
“One of my athletes who played tennis in Italy had highly recommended my work to Antonio Zucca, Laura’s coach. Laura required a physio during the Australian Open and after discussing how I could assist her, we started working together. She had to quarantine for 14 days and during that time I had created programmes for her to do whilst in the hotel room. She completed quarantine by the end of January and then within two days she was competing in her first Melbourne tournament. This week she just started the Australian Open and then she plays doubles with Vera Zvonareva,” explaining on how he got the opening to get involved with the AO, Goonewardena told the Sunday Times.
Interesting yet unknown to many in Sri Lanka, Goonewardena has worked with Katya Crema – a dual winter Olympian, Jo Weston – a netballer, Phoebe Stanley – an Australian rowing champion, badminton stars Jeff Tho and Luke Chong and top cyclists Freddy Ovett and Lachy Norris. Siegemund is the new feather in his cap of world class athletes.
Prior to the ongoing AO, Goonewardena has covered various sports in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, England, Singapore, and right around Australia – Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. His list of athletes range from Olympians, Winter Olympians to cricket, tennis, track and field, badminton, baseball, football, rugby, rowing, netball, swimming and so on.
“The list goes on actually. Over the 22 years my students have calculated that I have conducted over 65,000 treatment sessions,” the father-of-three stated delightfully.
Goonewardena had a few opportunities to serve his country of origin through the handful in Sri Lanka who knew about his aptitude. He was one of the few shortlisted for the Head Physio’s position of the Sri Lanka cricket team in 2011, which eventually was handed over to Steve Mount. He has also worked as a consultant and provided training programmes for physios in Sri Lanka. One of his projects conducted just before the COVID-19 pandemic was a training programme to share the Australian know-how with physiotherapists in Sri Lanka. The first course had attracted over 50 participants and about a dozen were physiotherapists of Sri Lanka Cricket.
“This was a partnership with sports medical experts Henry Wajswelner, Steve Sandor, Dr Radhik Wijesooriya and Minal Cabraal from International Placewell Consultants, Vald Technology Australia and Supacore Australia. Once the COVID travel restrictions ease out, our plan is to return to Sri Lanka to complete this programme,” he explained.
In 2014 General Daya Ratnayake, the then Commander of Sri Lanka Army contacted Goonewardena to obtain his services in training the physios in the Army. The training was conducted successfully and some of the athletes, who then attended the Paralympic Games, went onto succeed in the Asian Games.
A keen observer of Sri Lanka’s progress and decline in sports, Goonewardena outlined the importance of having ‘conversation currency’ between four facts — athletes who are accountable, coaches who know how to coach, sports medicine experts and administration. He revealed that this is a simple yet successful method Australia follows, a fact Sri Lanka could take into consideration.
“I may not be able to comment on why Sri Lankan athletes fail but I can share what makes Australian athletes successful. We researched this and found out that the ‘conversation currency’ between all the four factors mentioned, have to be transparent. It is this reason why Australia continues to push performances in cricket, netball, basketball, Olympics etc. For a population of about 25 million, Australia is always ranking highly with the medal count.”
“Another example of the conversation currency being very transparent was the Australian cricket team during the 2000s. Our research has shown that Sri Lanka had a few moments where we got the conversation currency between players, coaches, sports medics and the administration formula right. One of those was the 1996 World Cup,” explained Goonewardena, which openly depicts where Sri Lanka lags in sports in its efforts in the global arena and how easily matters could be resolved.
His brother, Kapila, is also a sports physiotherapist, unlike the senior Goonewardena, who was a well-qualified engineer. The Goonewardena brothers probably took the interest to sports at a very young age because of their uncle, Gemunu, who happens to be the cricket coach of Nalanda College and apparently Bandula Warnapura, Sri Lanka’s first Test captain. Kapila currently works in Shanghai with the regional Men’s Volleyball team, which has three national players in his squad he looks after.
“Although we travelled extensively when we were young, I was schooled at Nalanda College when we were in the country. My fondest memories were attending the Big Match against Ananda, where the likes of Roshan Mahanama and Asanka Gurusingha were our stars for Nalanda for those matches. My brother and I grew up playing cricket. But when we didn’t play that, we were into tennis, basketball, swimming and football. Our father even got us a table tennis table to keep us occupied. Even to this day I play club cricket,” said Goonewardena, the sportsman and sports enthusiast.
Presently Goonewardena and his team at Elite Akademy Sports Medicine is conducting an extensive and deep research on better ways for the human body to recover and faster ways to locate and treat sports injuries. With his origins rooted to Sri Lanka, Goonewardena is eager to share the discoveries and knowledge with his colleagues in the island nation with no ulterior motives.
“I have always been passionate about helping Sri Lanka. As a Sri Lankan-born Australian, I see the potential for Sri Lanka to be a world leader in sports. What Singapore achieved in the finance world, I feel Sri Lanka can do the same in sport. Sri Lanka has a large pool of male and female up-and-coming athletes who can make a world mark,” he described.
For now Goonewardena and his assistants — Lauryn Van Dooran and Prady Thangavel, an Indian — are busy in keeping Laura Siegemund in good shape for her remaining matches of AO. He is highly excited for Siegemund, who had to exit from the Women’s Singles after losing to Serena Williams, but has the potential of marching forward in the Women’s Doubles with Vera Zvonareva and Mixed Doubles with compatriot Kevin Krawietz. A positive finish for Siegermund will make Goonewardena a thrilled man, which also may give Sri Lanka a slight share of his piece of success.