Niluka shines in Estonia

Sri Lanka's most celebrated badminton star, Niluka Karunarathne won the bronze medal at the Estonia International Badminton Tournament recently.

Karunaratne, who competed in the men's singles event, defeated Israeli player Misha Zilberman 2-1 to claim the bronze medal.

The Lankan star is currently the 78th in the Badminton World Federation's world rankings.

The Israeli Zilberman was the 73rd in the world rankings before his loss to Karunarathne and now he lies in the 74th slot.

Karunarathne is sponsored by the McLarens Group of Companies which appointed him as its Brand Ambassador recently. Being a company which is highly engaged in promoting badminton in the country, it has taken this decision as the sport does not receive much support from organizations and also from its followers.

Karunaratne who started his career as an eight-year-old at Darmasoka College, Ambalangoda is the present National Champion, having won the all-island championship, schools championship at the age of nine years and continued to dominate in this field for many years as a school boy.

He won the all island school championships in all age categories.

While doing so he also achieved a rare feat when he won the national championship at the age of 16, to become the first school boy to do so. At the moment he is under hard training with the hope of representing the country at the Olympic Games in London this year. His main ambition is to make his way to London to bring glory to his motherland.

He recently had a highly successful tour of Europe competing in four tournaments held in Pueto Rico (South America), Miami America, Scotland and Ireland. During these tournaments he came up with brilliant performances. During his tour of South America, he won the Peuto Rico International Challenge. This Championship was competed by 25 countries and he came up with a blistering performance to be on top. Then he moved to Miami for the next competition International Series where the same number of countries participating. Here too, Karunarathne was outstanding and became the champion continuing his winning form.