Commonwealth Gold Medallist Chinthana in Melbourne for further training

By Lal Gunesekara

Sri Lanka’s weightlifter Chinthana Vidanage (25) who won a gold medal for his country after 12 years at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia in March this year, returned to the same city for his second stint of a scholarship offered by the Sri Lanka Cricket Association “down under” for a three-month period. He left the island last week.

Vidanage was in Melbourne earlier too before the South Asian Games staged in Sri Lanka in August and is attached to the same club in Melbourne where 10 Australian national weightlifters also train under the supervision of the Vice-President of the world body.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer, Vidanage, said that there is more and better equipment for his training in Melbourne than found in Sri Lanka and that he will attend English language classes in the mornings and train in the evenings. He is due to return to the country, just before the national contingent leaves for Doha, Qatar for the Asian Games in December.

He said that the injury on his left arm is “improving” and will get further medical treatment in Melbourne.

Vidanage won a gold at the South Asian Games and is hopeful that he will do the same in Qatar too. From Qatar, Vidanage, flies to Colarado, USA on a two-year scholarship in view of the next Olympic Games to be staged in China in 2010. His scholarship to the USA is arranged by the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Sri Lanka.

Vidanage’s career received a further boost with Brandix Lanka Limited, one of the big names in the apparel industry, signing him on as a Human Resources (HR) Executive at their branch in Giritale (close to his home town of Pollonaruwa) about three months back. He will also be involved in community related projects, particularly water, undertaken by the Brandix Group.

He had received other offers of employment, but decided to accept the Brandix offer as the apparel firm has promised to help him more in his weightlifting career and even after.

Manager of Corporate Communications of Brandix Lanka Limited, Ms. Kishani de Silva, said that Tisaka Perera the Talent Engagement and Development (TED) Manager of Brandix, Pravin Kalpage (CEO of Brandix Casual Wear) and Ajith Dias (Director of Brandix Lanka Limited) had spoken to Vidanage about their sponsorship offer, and that the weight lifter was signed on just before he left for Australia for his first stint of his training mission.

She further said that apart from his salary, Chinthana Vidanage, will be given duty leave whenever he needs to persue his career and also nutrients etc. In fact, the CEO of Brandix Group, Ashroff Omar, has directed the management of Brandix to give Vidanage “whatever he needs” to help him to reach the top.

Ms. de Silva also said that it was their (Brandix) duty to do whatever they could for Vidanage to reach his peak at the correct time. She said: “We will make life as simple as possible for him and give him encouragement. We will find out from him what he loves to do and will continue to help him even after his career as a weightlifter is over. We will continue with the dialog. We will give him 100 per cent, and hope he will respond the same way and deliver the goods.”