Sam laments fall in shuttle standards

LESLIE Fernando

Sam Chandrasena former Sri Lanka and St. Peter's College sportsman is a double international. Sam represented Sri Lanka (Ceylon) at badminton and basketball. He maintained his devotion to both disciplines even whilst playing at the highest level. He is at present the Director of Sports Lyceum International School, Nugegoda.

To represent the country in two different sports is a rare achievement. He represented Ceylon in badminton from 1957 to 1969 had represented the country in basketball from 1958 to 1967.

In 1952 Sam became the junior national champion and it was during this year that the Badminton Association was formed. He played in the first national in 1953 and entered the finals and lost to Dr. Rasalingam and in 1958 lost to Sam Schoolman in the finals despite defeating the holder Dr. Rasalingam. He won the national title in 1959 beating Dr. Rasalingam.

In basketball Sam has played for the national team along side Dr. Thurairajah, Rohan Daluwatte, Ram Sunderalingam and Sri Skandarajah to name a few.

In both, badminton and basketball Sam played in several international tournaments at home and abroad. He captained the national badminton team for six years.

Sam also held the offices of President of Badminton Association of Sri Lanka, Secretary of SLBA, Tournament Secretary, SLBA. He is currently the Chairman of the Selection Committee of the SLBA. He was also a top badminton coach.

In basketball he held the post of vice president, assistant secretary.

Sam said that the game of badminton is one sport that can make much headway in the country if properly handled. In the past some of the players in the by-gone era performed well against players from Malaysia, Japan, China, India, Thailand and Pakistan.

Badminton reached quite a high standard in the period between 1948 to 1956. There was Sam, P. Sivalingam, Rais Jansz, Dr. A. R. L. Wijesekera, Dr. Rasalingam, Jerry Chandrasena, Dr. C. Thurairaja and Nanda Nagasinghe to name just a handful who really did the country proud.

Sam said that the standard was rather high in the late forties. In 1948 when Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) put up a fine show against Malaysia though the Lankans lost. He was somewhat sad that the youngsters are not given the opportunity of improving their standards due to the selfish attitude of some players and officials more keen in holding their positions.

He feels that there should be a complete overhaul of the Sri Lanka Badminton Association and some knowledgeable people should be in charge so that badminton will regain its past glory.

The basic need for badminton today is proper management with honest officials. The badminton administrators in the last five to six years had apparently brought the game in the country to a mess.

This has been due to the former officials not being interested in improving badminton in Sri Lanka but were only interested in their personal glory by getting elected to important positions in the international body which they do not deserve as most of the administrators did not know the value of badminton for improvement.