The art of smashes, drops and using the court Niluka talks of his afterlife in badminton

One cannot define a time or day, but sporadically legends are born in various disciplines of sports. For instance, Susanthika Jayasinghe in athletics, M.J.M. Lafir in the field of snooker, Arjuna Ranatunga in cricket have made quantum changes in their given fields and cut indelible niches in the annals of sport. 

May not be on the same podium, shuttler Niluka Karunaratne – the Chairman of the NOC SL Athletes Commission has created history in his field of activity and ended up as a role model of his given sport. May be if he had a Lankan opponent who also stretch him to his limits Sri Lanka’s badminton history would have been different. Nonetheless his feat of seventeen straight crowns may be unmatchable like the Muralitharan 800 because seventeen years of dedication is sheer sustenance of mind power. 

Mind you, even his last finale had a story of its own and let us start at that point and let him explain under what circumstances he let the curtain down. The Lankan badminton legend explained “Since the pandemic situation occurred worldwide and Sri Lanka also had a lockdown which lasted almost three months and thereafter the badminton authorities decided to recommence our training under strict health regulations. However, during that time, I had a 2–3-month training regime which benefitted me a lot. Ironically at that point I was flagged down for being positive for Covid-19. This occurred on the 12th January when I had flu and a dry cough for 4-5 days. There the badminton authorities decided to have a blanket PCR test for all players. I did my PCR on January 22 and there I was positive for Covid and I had to undergo quarantine. There the authorities provided me with a private facility as a result I was completely out of badminton for about 28 days. To add to the woes my wife also was diagnosed positive on the 25th and things got quite complicated. During the first lock down, I had a thorough workout, but this second session was quite devastating.

“During the first lock down, I was working with my physical trainer and the national coach backed by the support of the badminton authorities and add to that this is the Olympic qualifying period. Then the whole gamut began to crumble around me. I came out of quarantine on February 4 and there the authorities had publicised that the 58th Badminton Nationals were to be held from the 17th to 21st of February.  I was under tremendous pressure. I had not touched a racket for a considerable duration and had I decided to skip this year it would be the first time since 2001 that I had not been a part of this spectacle. I was talking to my brothers and a few close associates and was trying weigh the options – what ran through my mind mostly was that this was going to be my curtain call or could I do it after these recent setbacks. Another option was to skip this and go for the Olympic qualification and comeback next year. Yet, at the back of my mind my intuition kept on telling me that I should go for it and make it for the 17th time in-a-row. At the same time same voice inside me told me that this was going to be my swan song on the local stage.

“I decided to take up the challenge. Then I decided to play the first few rounds and size-up the situation before embarking on the real challenges. Gladly all worked out fine, then I began to use my years of experience and won the 17th consecutive crown. In short, I had a lot of obstacles overcome a month before that, but, through sheer dedication I conquered all my doubts. My next one year is very important to me. This gives me the opportunity to concentrate in my international badminton during this period before I think of calling it a day, because I feel that I have a real good chance of qualifying for the Olympic 2020.”

GoodSport then asked “what’s next”?

Niluka Karunaratne explained “I always had the passion to stay in Sri Lanka. This sport has taken me to so many countries and I have trained in so many international facilities. I have worked with a lot of good coaches and do have the passion to stay in Sri Lanka and serve the country in some capacity. I would love to produce a player who could reach a high international ranking may in the first 20 or the thirty. For instance, take India; there are many players who have reached the top rankings within the first one hundred. In the ladies segment the situation is similar. We must develop a system that we could develop players who could move to the next elevation. There should be a path. We should start working on that and bring out a system where we could develop talented junior players in the ages of 11-13 into that the system and develop them gradually to reach the desired international levels. We could pick a young prodigy may be a boy and a girl and put a lot of eggs in that basket and see them develop and also train them in a different concept. You must not put them in the same system and the same crowed and focus on the age groups.”

We asked Karunaratne to elaborate on the status quo and asked beginning from India, up to Japan the game of badminton is of very high international standards and why can’t we join the band wagon?   His answer was “Genetically if you take these Asian countries their structure suits the game of badminton. It is a fast sport that needs a lot of hand-eye coordination and a lot of quick decisions have to be made a flash. The Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian players are very good at it. The next reason is that they have a history of being on the top exchanges since the 60’s; they have good infrastructure for the players to be professional from childhood. As a result, there are so many players who are willing to take up the sport seriously thus making a living out of it.  At the same time, I must confess there is also a lot of talent in store in these particular countries.”