Newly formed CDBA plans to nurture badminton talent and produce champions

By A Special Sports Correspondent

The Colombo District Badminton Association (CDBA) was formed on November 11 (Saturday) at its inuagural Annual General Meeting where Gamini Jayasuriya was elected as its president.Jayasuriya in an interview with The Island newspaper spelt out many of the association’s plans among which nurturing talent and producing champions would be key. As many as 15 clubs in the district sent their representatives for the AGM where a constitution was presented to the gathering.

“The idea is to have a constitution common to all and have many clubs in the association. When there is a formal unit more clubs will come and eventually there would be more members too,” said Jayasuriya who has in the past served the mercantile badminton association and Sri Lanka Badminton Association in their executive committees. According to Jayasuriya clubs have to meet a mandate of having a minimum 20 members to be recognised as a club functioning under the umbrella of the CDBA.

Jayasuriya said that the idea is to decentralize operations in time to come and “phase out provincial associations, so that district associations can take over”. The CDBA president said that in the long run the district association he heads hopes to have autonomy from the Western Province Badminton Association and have direct affiliation with the Sri Lanka Badminton Association.

Talking about the players he said that the CDBA plans to focus on the grassroots levels and find players who can be nurtured. “Talent must be identified and given due place. We will develop players and hand them over to the SLBA” he said.

According to Jayasuriya from a players’ perspective the CDBA plans to produce a national champion from the Colombo District who’ll eventually reach international standard.

He also stressed the importance of district associations hosting tournaments and also taking some of the financial burden of organizing such tournaments without depending entirely on the SLBA.

Talking about the executive committee which was elected he said “we have a good set of people and much activities that’ll raise and develop the game can be expected in the future”.

Sri Lanka Badminton President Rohan De Silva graced the occasion as a special invitee and congratulated the CDBA for being the first to formulate a district level badminton association. Sri Lanka Badminton Vice President Dinesh Jayawardene spoke at the occasion and highlighted the technical programmes to be carried out at the district level in developing badminton. Badminton coach Chinthaka Fernando was appointed as Membership Chairman and clubs which are interested in obtaining membership of CDBA can reach him via 0775821241.

Some of the other individuals appointed to top posts in the CDBA apart from Jayasuriya as it’s president were: Trevor Reckerman (Secretary), Deepavali Madurapperuma, Senira Senarathne, Caryl Tozer (Vice Presidents), W.G. Punchihewa (Treasurer).