SL targeting six medals at 2022 Commonwealth Games

By Susil Premalal

The Sri Lanka Weightlifting Federation (SLWF) is confident of winning at least six medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which will be held from August 9 to 18 in Birmingham, England.

SLWF National Coach R. B. Wickramasingha told Daily Mirror yesterday that Sri Lanka has a chance of winning four medals in the Men’s category and two medals from the Women’s category.

Sri Lanka are targeting medals in the Men’s 55kg, 61kg, 73kg and 81kg weight class and in the Women’s 49kg, 53kg and 87kg weight class.      

Wickramasingha has been the National Coach since 1995 and under his guidance Sri Lanka have won seven medals in the Commonwealth Games history including one Gold Medal, three Silver Medals and three Bronze Medals.

Over 55 weightlifters including 13 from the Elite National Pool are currently training under six different coaches in Colombo, Kurunegala, Kandy and Polonnaruwa.

Sri Lanka won its first weightlifting Gold Medal at the 2006 Melbourne Games where Chinthana Vidanage triumphed in the 62kg weight class.

Thereafter, Vidanage won a Silver Medal at the 2010 New Delhi Games in the 69kg weight class while Sudesh Peiris won a Bronze Medal in the 56kg weight class at the same meet.

Peiris also won a Silver Medal at the 2014 Glasgow Games in the 62kg weight class.     

Sri Lanka won one Silver Medal and two Bronze Medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia through Indika Dissanayake (69kg), Chaturanga Lakmal (56kg) and Dinusha Gomes (48kg) respectively.    
The National Sports Council (NSC) is also backing the SLWF under their High-Performance Programme as weightlifting has been identified as a future medal winning sport.