Wasantha Kumara - national boxing coach

S M Jiffrey Abdeen
Kandy Sports Correspondent

Wasantha Kumara of Slimline Boxing Club of the MAS Holdings has been appointed National Boxing Coach for the Sri Lanka Boxing team for the forthcoming SAF Games to be held in New Delhi shortly.

The boxers both men and women who excelled at the recently concluded 86th Boxing Nationals held in Kandy last month will be eligible for training before the final selection is made, said Wasantha Kumara. His appointment as the National Boxing coach for the SAF Games was made by the Ministry of Sports.

Wasantha Kumara said that at around twenty boxers, all men undergo training before changes are made.

Wasantha Kumara is a product of Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa where he did reasonably well as a boxer but strangely boxing's plum eluded him.

But being a dedicated personality what he lost in the swings, he made in the roundabouts. His father was transferred to Ratnapura and he found time hanging in his hands. It was God's wish that he should takeover the coaching of Seevali Vidyalaya, Ratnapura which was straggling to find its feet in the combat sport.

The talent was there in the boxers from the ‘Gem City’ and like the gems found in pits and perhaps in mud holes, it had to be polished. Wasantha Kumara was entrusted with the task of chiselling the rough edges and polishing and he did his job with excellence.

To start with Seevali Vidyalaya won the L V Jayaweera Memorial Boxing Championship for schools and later the T B Jayah Memorial Shield Championship which stunned the local boxing world. Next they won the Coveted Stubbs Shield the plum awarded to the champions at the National Schools Games which is the highest on offer. They won this for five years.

From the year 2006 to 2009 they were undisputed champions at boxing in schools and they lifted all the championship titles T B Jayah, L V Jayaweera and Stubbs Shield Junior National and Provincial Championships.

The boxers from Seevali Vidyalaya left an indelible mark in the schools boxing field which made other schools sit up and think and draw different strategy to over the boxers from the Gem City who glittered in the boxing ring.

He said that Caltex Lubricants with Kishu Gomes at the helm was very helpful to the school and without his support, very little would have been achieved and Caltex stood as pillars to our success.

Next patron saint of boxing at Slimline Dian Gomes spotted his potential as boxing coach and felt he could serve the country better in this field gave him employment in MAS Holdings and at the same time was its boxing coach.