SHARPSHOOTER SURANGA FERNANDO’S RECORDS UNBROKEN SINCE 2006
Sharpshooter Suranga Fernando has the unique distinction of holding no less than 13 records in the sport of target shooting, the majority of them in the Junior National Men’s category which remains unbroken for more than 14 years.
The former student of Prince of Wales College burst into the National limelight as a shooting prodigy two decades ago when he won a junior individual Gold Medal at the South Asian Shooting Championship in 2000 in Pakistan at the age of 14, barely a year after he was introduced to the sport by his father Manjula Fernando, an ex-army officer.
There was no looking back thereafter for Suranga Fernando who raised the bar in pistol shooting setting numerous records when he was eligible to compete in the Under-21 category until 2006 but none of his 10 National and Sri Lanka records have been broken since.
He rewrote the record books several times by setting new marks in all five events of the pistol category.
Suranga Fernando has his sights set on competing in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 or Paris Olympics in 2024 to put the icing on a sparkling career during which he represented Sri Lanka at three Commonwealth Games (2002, 2014 and 2018) in addition to two World Cups apart from regional competitions in his pet 10m Air Pistol event.
The precociously talented youngster was selected to represent Sri Lanka at the 2002 Commonwealth Games when he was 16.
He has achieved some degree of success at international level winning a senior individual Bronze Medal in the
South Asian Games (SAG) in 2010 in Bangladesh; won the Team Bronze Medals cumulatively in SAG in 2006, 2010, 2016 and 2019; and won a Silver Medal in the Air Pistol Mixed event in the 2019 SAG.
Suranga Fernando has not given up on his dream of representing Sri Lanka at the Olympics in Tokyo next year after achieving the minimum qualifying score (MQS) at the Asian Shooting Championships in Doha, Qatar in November.
Sharpshooters have represented Sri Lanka at the Olympics since Pushpamali Ramanayake first took part in the 1992 Barcelona Games in addition to competing in Atlanta (1996) and Athens (2004).
Malini Wickramasinghe (1996 and 2000 Sydney), Ruwini Abeymanna (2000 and 2004) and Mangala Samarakoon (2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro) also achieved the distinction of competing in successive Olympics while Edirisinghe Senanayake was the lone entry in Beijing (2008). Two of them, Abeymanna and Senanayake were pistol shooters.
“I have hopes of being selected for the Olympics,” said the 34-year-old Accounts Executive at Slimline who shot a personal best score of 577 twice in local tournaments in the 10m Air Pistol event.
He achieved best scores of 558 in the 25m Standard Pistol (South Asian Games 2010) and 566 in the 25m Centre Fire (Commonwealth Games 2002).
He fired a score of 566 at the Doha meet which is above the Olympic qualifying mark.
But his selection for the Olympics depends on whether the National Shooting Sport Federation decides to send a competitor for rifle or pistol event.