‘Olympian by 2024’ Badminton Training Camp with Niluka Karunaratne

An ‘Olympian by 2024’ is the slogan of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) and the Foundation of Goodness (FoG), as we conduct monthly training sessions with professional coaches and Olympians, across a wide gamut of sports.

For the month of February, Sri Lankan Olympic badminton player Niluka Karunaratne and his father L. Karunaratne conducted a Badminton training session at the Sri Sumangala Collage Hikkaduwa Badminton Courts. 39 budding Badminton players got to meet their hero and learn from him!

Named ‘Sri Lanka’s undisputed badminton champion’, Niluka represented Sri Lanka at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, while captaining the Sri Lankan contingent in 2012. He also competed for Sri Lanka in 5 consecutive Commonwealth Games from 2002 to 2018.

Niluka and his father spent the entire day with the boys and girls, sharing invaluable information on technique and training. The group of players aged between 10 and 16, were very excited to be a part of this training progamme facilitated by the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka.       

Kularatne College Ambalangoda, Karandeniya Central College Karandeniya, Sri Sumangala College Hikkaduwa, Prajapathi Girls School A'goda, Sripathi Vidyalaya Ambalangoda and Sussex College Galle were represented at the Badminton session. The kids will take with them the lessons learnt, hone their talent and share these tips with other players in their area.

As per the Memorandum of Understanding signed in December 2018, FoG and NOC will be conducting similar training sessions throughout the year, on a monthly basis to empower rural athletes and provide them with exposure to better training and facilities. This is the third coaching camp to be held at the Foundation of Goodness Sports Academy. The ultimate goal of these sessions, is to ensure that rural talent does not wither away and is identified and refined at an early stage and given the necessary boost to reach their full potential.

20th February 2019