Buddhika Dikkumbura a top class table tennis player and coach-by Upananda Jayasundera

Buddhika Rajitha Dikkumbura – Veteran Table Tennis coach. (pic. by Upananda Jayasundera-Kandy sports Spl.Corr

Source:Dailynews

44 year old Buddhika Rajitha Dikkumbura, an old boy of Vidyartha College,Kandy is a leading Table Tennis coach in the country at present but he says that the children who are interested in the game are not in a position to continue with the practices at the moment as the parents are more interested in their studies than in sports. This is the situation in most areas in the country and the relevant authorities do not encourage them to improve TT among the children who are talented as it is essential to train them

through-out the year to get them to be Champions in Table Tennis for them to participate at SAF games, Asian Games and Commonwealth games which is discouraging for the TT Coaches. His main intention was to train some good TT players for participation at Olympic Games but unfortunately it was curtailed due to the covid 19 pandemic

Buddhika started playing Table Tennis under the veteran Coaches Sunil Abeygunasekera and Rahal Abeyratne from 1985 onwards. He became a TT Champion in School level after which at District, Provincial and All Island levels under all age groups from Under 10 onwards. Once he left School he won a number of Open Table Tennis tournaments and was selected to represent Sri Lanka at the 1994 SAF Games. While continuing as a TT player Buddhika got through the Level I and II Coaching Courses and started his coaching career.

He started TT coaching for Maliyadewa Boys and Girls Schools, Kurunegala while coaching his alma mater, Vidyartha College,Kandy. He was coaching Mahamaya Girls School,Kandy as well and got through the Level III Table Tennis Coaching course and became a high performance TT Coach who produced National and International level TT players such as Udaya Ranasinghe,who won a National Championship for seven consecutive years from 2013 onwards. Apart from him, he has produced TT players such as Ridmi Karadanarachchi, who became the Womens’ Runner-up at the TT Nationals, Supun Warusavithana, Nirmala Jayasinghe, Dimanthi Bandara, Thanushi Rodrigo who became International level male and female TT players.

Under Buddhika’s coaching Sri Lanka won the Junior SAF TT Championship held in India in the year 2015 and won the same Tournament held in Pakistan in 2016.

His intention is to improve the game of table tennis among the children who are really Interested in the game as soon as this epidemic has been curtailed.