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| Sunday, 20 July 2003 |
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Niluka to attend Prakash Padukone Badminton Coaching Academy by LAL GUNESEKERA At long last, the Sri Lanka Badminton Association (SLBA), has been successful in obtaining a two-month coaching stint for its young national champion, Niluka Karunaratne, a schoolboy at Royal College, to attend a top notch Academy overseas. Karunaratne leaves on August 5 to attend the Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore, India, but will be returning to Sri Lanka to play in local ranking tournaments. The President of the SLBA Riza Jumar, told the Sunday Observer that young Karunaratne will come directly under Prakash Padukone, who is a former All-England champion. Padukone has extended a concessionary rate of Rs. 150,000 to the SLBA for Karunaratne's two-month stint at this Academy and the SLBA, hope to send the local champion on short stints of two to three months to academies in Denmark too after completion of the course in Bangalore. However, according to Jumar, this all depends of the finances needed for such a venture. Padukone has also agreed to send some Indian teams (both men and women) to play in Sri Lanka and negotiations on this matter is "going on" with the SLBA stating that they are only in a position to host the Indian sides (accommodation, travel) but not air fare. Leading players from Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Singapore and Japan are being invited to play at the Nationalised Services BA Open Championship scheduled for September. Meanwhile, the final rounds of the Junior National Championship is scheduled to be staged from July 25 to 27 at both the S. Thomas' College Indoor Stadium in Mount Lavinia and Royal College Sports Complex where the finals are to be worked off on July 27. There is also a strong possibility of this event being shown alive of Rupavahini. |
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