Sports
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The
second Satellite Badminton tournament will be held from 25 to 28
August In continuation Kulasingham said “In all aspects at present Badminton is ‘big’, where we have a direct participation of 5500 players drawn from the under 11 to the under 19 groups along in the Junior level. So far for this year’s tournament we are assured of the participation of ten countries so far including the Badminton giants in the likes of Malaysia and India. To add to our success India will be sending all their top ranking players which include their number one and two seeds.” The Satellite tournament counts the number three ranking tournament in the world next to Thomas Cup and the World Master’s Championship.” Drawing up the future plans of the SLBA Kulasingham added “Though there are all the facilities in Colombo and the suburbs with so many indoor courts which have come up, the outstations do not have those same facilities in spite of also having a large participation. That is where we need to expand tournaments of this nature and make them big and make them attractive for the sponsors so that we can cascade the facilities to the outstations with the remuneration that we receive. Maybe a few years ago we were thinking small even if we did have a sizable participation. But the time has arrived for us to think big and act big. Finally narrating a brief history of the game in the island the project chairman said “Like many other games, Badminton was also introduced to “Ceylon” with the advent of British well over 100 years ago. “It’s on record that the first Badminton Club was formed in 1909 in ‘Dimbulla’ by the British plantation community in the general area of the hill country. Dimbulla Club has been conducting Badminton tournaments regularly at Inter Club and Individual basis, during the early part of the 20th century”. “However it was in 1950 that “Badminton Association of Ceylon” was formed and first Senior National Men and Women Championships were conducted in the year 1953 and continues regularly without any interruptions. Mr.N.M.De Silva, who pioneered the formation of the Association was elected the Founder President of the “Badminton Association of Ceylon’’, with the active contribution of Mr.E.R.S.R. Coomaraswamy, who succeeded him a few years later. Mr.Basil P.De Silva, the Founder Honorary Secretary played a key role in nurturing and developing the game, having served for well over two decades”. “From 1950 up to about 1970, however, the game at competition level was confined to a few clubs and a handful of Schools mainly in Colombo barring one or two outstation schools”. An important milestone was achieved in the latter part of 1970, when the “Schools Badminton Association of Ceylon’ was formed by the legendary “Ariyadasa Silva” of Ambalangoda. With this move, with the Schools Association conducting its first ever “ Junior Nationals in June 1971 saw a huge participation amongst the school children from all parts of the Island. Today, the Badminton Association could boast over 5000 children taking part at the Junior Nationals (2004), from over 150 Schools, which is arguably the singular largest tournament in Sri Lanka, vis-à-vis participation. It has 20 active District Associations and arrangements are being made to popularize the game in an organized manner in the other Districts as well. The ‘Wijesekera’s’ and Badminton are in separable, in that Dr.ARL Wijesekera, his Wife ‘Nanda’ [who was the first women’s champion] and both their sons having represented the country having played at the highest level. Dr.ARL Wijesekera continues to serve the game in an advisory capacity to the SLBA up to date. Dr.R.Vigneshwaran, who served with utmost love and dedication needs special mention apart from grooming many players, for his singular effort to obtain the block of land from the Ministry of Sports and getting an indoor stadium’ and Head Quarters Complex for the SLBA. |
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