Twelve Gateway students represent Sri Lanka in eight sports
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At a time when the school celebrates its 25th anniversary, Gateway College has made a significant contribution to the development of sports in Sri Lanka by having 12 of its young students represent the country in 2022. Sharo Perera was recently chosen to lead the Sri Lankan team to tour Malaysia to play for the Basketball Asia Cup. The Chairman of Gateway attributes this success to the dedicated services of the school’s coaches, many of whom also train national squads and the continuous investments made over the years to develop world class sporting infrastructure.
Basketball – Sharo Perera
Sharo brought honour to his school by being the first Gateway basketballer to captain the country. He was the leading scorer for Sri Lanka in the recently held FIBA 3×3 Under-17 Asia Cup 2022. Another student of Gateway, Gihansa Nakandalage, narrowly missed out on the opportunity to represent the Girls’ team.
Badminton – Rashmi Mudalige, Vishvani Wanniarachchi and Natasha Gunasekara
Rashmi and Vishvani have been selected to participate in Badminton Asia Under-17, Under-15 Junior Championships later this month in Thailand. Natasha will be in the team going to Maldives for the LiNing Maldives International Challenge.
Football – Samunu Kaggodaarachchi
Samunu was selected for the Under-20 Sri Lanka Football squad that toured India to play in the SAFF U-20 Championship. Samunu was not only the first Gateway student to represent the Sri Lankan national men’s team in football and was also the first international school student to represent his country in football.
Scrabble – Adeesha Dissanayake
Adeesha represented the country at the World Youth Scrabble Championship for the fifth consecutive year this year.
Chess – Nabil Nazar Mohamed and Brijesh Saravanabavan
Nabil and Brijesh represented the country at the Under-16 Chess Olympiad that was held recently in Azerbaijan. Incidentally, Nabil recorded the best performance for Sri Lanka by scoring 5.5 out of 9 games. Nabil also represented Sri Lanka at the World Youth Chess Championship and there too he recorded the best performance for team Sri Lanka. He also participated at the World Chess Olympiad.
Swimming – Hiruki de Silva
Hiruki is among the four swimmers who have just been selected to represent Sri Lanka at the 8th FINA World Junior Swimming Championships in Lima, Peru.
Squash – Bihandu Nanayakkara and Manuth Dassanayake
Bihandu Nanayakkara and Manuth Dassanayake represented Sri Lanka at the Asian Junior Individual Squash Championships 2022 that was held in Thailand. In the recently concluded Junior Nationals, Manuth became the Under-13 champion while Bihandu secured the third place in Under-15. New entrant, Ravith Mendis secured the second place in Under-9 category.
Rowing – Mithyl Wickramasinghe
Mithyl Wickramasinghe has been selected for the Junior national pool in the Under-16 age category and is currently undergoing training.