Fresh from the Rio Olympics, Sri Lanka’s top shuttler, Niluka Karunaratne is all set to swing his racket at the upcoming Yonex Belgian International 2016 scheduled to commence on September 14th and proceed till September 17th. ThePapare.com caught up with the champ to find out more about his upcoming engagements.
He disclosed that right after the Rio Olympics, he took a week’s rest before getting back to training and preparing himself for the Belgian tour.
“I experienced a slight drop in my training schedule. Though six months before Rio, I had been continuously training and worked hard for six months in order to prep myself and earn as much points as I could to qualify for the event. There was immense pressure at the time and even now, right afterwards, I started training a week and a half ago as I will be on tour twice before the end of the year. One is the Yonex International in Belgium and the next will be a tournament in Prague in the Czech Republic,” Niluka remarked.
The Yonex Belgian International will be taking place for the 12th consecutive time and a highlight of this year’s gathering will be the inclusion of athletes who competed at the Rio Olympics. The event has been dubbed as one of the greatest badminton events to be taking place in the Belgian region.
After having defeated the likes of Kenichi Tago from Japan who was World No. 08 during the London Olympics in 2012, Niluka is continuously forging a path excelling in his sport. Having bounced back from his stint at the Rio Olympics which culminated recently, he is back on track to take part at the tournament in Belgium.
Niluka commented about his future aspirations and explained that his ultimate aim was to secure a place in the Top 50 players in the world by the end of 2016; Niluka is currently holding the rank of 83rd in the world. However, he also revealed that his dream was to leave a mark in the 2020 Olympics. He spoke proudly about his brothers who are also fully engaged in the game and reiterated that his brother Dinuka Karunaratne was well-prepared and has got the potential to make it for the Olympics in 4 years’ time. “We had been playing doubles together nearly two years ago and then took a break before beginning to prepare for Rio. He is definitely on par with the sport and he too is looking forward to represent Sri Lanka during the event,” Niluka added.
Speaking of Niluka’s achievements in badminton, the 31 year old ace has attained enormous feats during the early days in his career as being the only person currently to have gained wins on every national title that was on offer under each age group and in all three formats of badminton ; singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
With his focus set sky high and aimed towards participating in more competitive world tournaments in order to assist with a boost of his rankings, Niluka is looking positive to work harder and dominate the global badminton arena.
