by A Special Sports Correspondent
Seasoned campaigner Buwaneka Goonathilleka beat the odds against him at the recent 71st Badminton Nationals held in Colombo and won a triple crown. But according to him the sport he loves the most is at present generating enough thoughts in him to consider whether to continue his association with badminton.
Speaking to ‘The Island’ he said that he sees the road that took him so far in the sport nearing an end; largely because he doesn’t see playing full time sport giving him the desired financial security. “My close associates from Galle see my progress as a player and my move to shift to Colombo and inquire whether I’m living the rich life that other sportsmen in Colombo enjoy. They are really mistaken. My future in life looks very bleak at present,” he said.
Goonathilleka created sensation this year at the nationals when he won the men’s open singles and then doubled up with Viren Nettasinghe to bag the men’s doubles. His third title came when he teamed up with Natasha Gunasekare and won the mixed doubles. At 28 years of age he is playing his best badminton and is looking for more exposure at overseas tournaments and a better pay cheque at the end of the month. But he is a long way from creating that dream life.
Knowing that badminton won’t shower him with money he has started to catch up on his postponed education and is now following a degree in IT at the SLIIT Academy. He tells budding badminton players to balance doing sport with education and warns of the repercussions one would have to face in life if one neglects classroom work. Goonathilleka is a person who quit school prematurely to start earning so that he could be based in Colombo and finance his badminton dream. He was employed in his first job at MAS Holdings when he sat for the A Level Examination.
He also served the Army as a sports recruit and now works for B&D Solutions PVT Ltd. He took the responsibility of looking after himself early in life, but that early start has not given him any advantage, he complained. He is a national champion that only a few know; because badminton is not a sport that’s marketed well like cricket and rugby in this country. If not for the encouragement and blessings he gets from his loved ones and friends during these last few years in the sport it would have been a harder grind for him.
He had his humble beginnings in the sport at Richmond College Galle and won his school colours for badminton in 2014. Thanks to the rich badminton culture at school and the commitment shown by his school coaches Goonathilleka made good progress and even emerged as a schoolboy badminton champion.
In the years he has invested on badminton he has made three trips to the Commonwealth Games, been twice to the South Asian Games and once to the Asian Games. He spoke fondly about training under foreign coaches Shankar Annamalai (Malaysia) and now Indonesian coach Tony Wahyudi. At present he comes under the tutelage of Wahyudi at Rising Star Badminton Academy. A fact that must be underscored here is that Goonathilleka and his doubles partners are all from this academy and they managed to beat national poolists in these events at the nationals.
“Right now I’ve decided to stick to my pet event which is the singles because I don’t have a good doubles partner” said Goonathilleka. Till very recently Goonathilleka’s men’s doubles partner was Sachin Dias. These two players enjoyed great success together and even made it to the semis of the Commonwealth Games in the year 2018. The duo enjoyed a world ranking of 72 as at 2022-11-15. At present Goonathilleka and Nettasinghe don’t have a world ranking in the doubles event. Goonathilleka’s world ranking now in the singles event is 349. His best world ranking in the singles was 190 as at 2022-12-13.
His close associates in badminton opine that he has another five good years of badminton left in him. For the record he is 28 years old now; that was the same age when Niluka Karunarathne, Sri Lanka’s best product in badminton to date, made his debut appearance at the Olympics. With no worthwhile competition to talk about existing in the local scene for Goonathilleka this champion strangely sees himself in a position where he has to drag himself to the sports stadium for training.
But before this depressing period he used to train a maximum of three times a day with his total training hours for the day reading between 6-8 hours. A national player must have his head clear to train and dream of getting ahead in the sport of his choice. But for Goonathilleka he is lost between raising the lion flag abroad through his performances in badminton and giving the assurance to his family that he can find a way to survive the thirty days of the month without getting into financial difficulties.
He has been forced to distance himself from Sri Lanka Badminton (SLB) for reasons best known to both these parties. He was not a member of the Sri Lankan contingent that went for the last big event for badminton in the world and he is a bit bitter about what had happened. May be, at times, his decent ways are looked upon as one his weaknesses by the sports authorities. Goonathilleka said that he has experienced the thrill of victory at home to the core. “I just want to be remembered as humble player” he concluded.