GATEWAY FELICITATES ITS COACH FOR MAKING SRI LANKA PROUD
Pradeep Nishantha, Assistant Head of Sports of Gateway College Colombo, was felicitated by the Gateway Colleges for his remarkable contribution to the country in producing two medal winners at the recently held Paralympic Games in Japan. The Sri Lankan national song was played for the very first time at an Olympics when Dinesh Priyantha Herath, who was trained by Nishantha, won a gold medal with a new world record. Pradeep has been working at Gateway since 2005 as a part time coach and since 2015 as a full timer and has been responsible for producing many national athletes from Gateway.
As an organization that is committed to the development of sports, Gateway’s Directorate believes that the ultimate beneficiaries of all investments they make should be the athletes and the country. All Gateway’s coaches who are responsible for national squads are provided with duty leave to represent the country at international events. Many of the school’s facilities which have been built to international standards are offered free of charge, if ever the national squads require them for practices.
Gateway students are blessed to be
coached and guided by professionals of the highest caliber.
Thilakajinadasa, the Team Leader – Sports development for the entire group was the very first female Olympian to represent Sri Lanka in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and is also a double International athlete who represented Sri Lanka in both Athletics and Netball. Under her guidance, as a national netball coach, Sri Lanka won the Asian Netball Championship title twice in 2009 and 2018. She also served as National Netball Coach for the national teams of Maldives and Brunei Darussalam.
Among Gateway’s team of coaches are a number of top Sri Lankan coaches. Tharindu Fernando, who was recently appointed National Basketball Coach for the Under 23 Sri Lankan side is among them. Other coaches who have provided their services at national level are Y. K.kularatne (Athletics), Dhanushka Fernando (Badminton), Ruwan Satharasinghe (Karate), Sharen Kannangara (Rowing), C. H.thalagala (Squash), Chandana Perera (Table Tennis), Ganendran Subramaniam (Tennis) and Anurudhdha Wijesinghe (Basketball).