The Sports Ministry spent more than 82 lakhs for Viren Nettasinghe’s International Badminton tournaments which helped him to reach Olympics qualifying standard, said Sports Director General Prof Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando.
We already made a pathway to the “Road of Olympics “and Sports Minister Harin Fernando gave all requirements and ordered me to look after Super athletes requirements and Viren is the first athlete to reach his target with our assistance .
From last January Viren got chance to take part in eight International Badminton tournaments with the assistance of the Ministry as well as Sri Lanka Badminton headed by President Rohan de Silva .
Yonex Estonia International tournament in Estonia Viren took part on January 26 for which Sports Ministry spent 189, 997 rupees and his second tournament Victor Swedish Open Tournament held in Switzerland we had to spend 310, 863 lakhs followed by Iran Fajr International challenge tournament for which we spent 1, 500, 208 rupees for Viren .
In addition last February Uganda International challenge we gave 1, 046, 640 rupees for him. For three more tournaments in March Dutch International tournament in Netherlands , Orien Polish Open Tournament in Poland and Toyota International challenge tournament in Thailand we spent 2, 965, 333 rupees . Sports Ministry had to intervene for the Condensate International challenge in Kazakhstan as Viren found it difficult to get visa for Kazakhstan but with the Assistance of SLB I have personally intervened to get visa for Viren for him to come directly from Thailand .
We discussed with Foreign Ministry Secretary and through Thailand Embassy of Kazakhstan we obtained Viren ‘s Visa as that tournament was vital as 2, 200 points obtained for Viren to add ranking points and we did all this hard work
He took part in Badminton Asia Championship in China and we once again gave 2, 548, 297 rupees and altogether more than 82 lakhs for this boy and we really appreciate President Ranil Wickremesinghe who allocated money through cabinet approval for sports development and these money we are handling with transparency .Not only Badminton the selected 16 sports we are eligible to make this type of facilities and 58 athletes are in super pool under the observation of National Sports Council headed by Dr Maiya Gunasekera he said. .Credit to SLB officials and coaches especially Viren’s father Roshan also gave good encouragement as he was with the son as manager cum coach . Today Viren Nettasinghe is the youngest shuttler to get Olympic direct qualification and we have to give guidance for Viren during the next two months before the Olympics concluded Sports Director General .
Dhammika Ratnaweera