Three Sri Lanka badminton officials, Lakpriya Edirisinghe, Chaturanga Vishwanath two umpires and Kasun Maduranga a line judge left for the USA to officiate at the BWF World Junior Championships 2023 which will commence tomorrow and run till October 8.
The tournament is for Mixed teams and individual events contested by leading shutters expected to take part in this event.
Sri Lanka Badminton president Rohan de Silva said it was a “great honour” to have the trio at the world meet.
Edirisinghe is a product of Asoka MV Maradana and is the most experienced Sri Lankan badminton umpire selected by the BWF as a semi professional umpire for the period covering 2024-2026.
He has already signed a contract with BWF and has already got the chance to officiate at the Paralympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and world badminton championships.
Only seven umpires out of 89 BWF Umpires are appointed as Semi Professional Umpires and this is the first time a Sri Lankan in Edirisinghe has signed a professional contract with BWF.
Vishwanath is a BWF umpire who is a Physical Education teacher at Agrabodhi College in Kantale also will officiate as an umpire. He started his international umpiring career in 2009 and officiated at the World badminton championship 2022 and the Japan India Open in 2023,
Vishwanath also officiated in the Thai Para Badminton Tournament 2023, Singapore Open 2022, Thailand Open 2022, Badminton Asia Championship 2022 and the Philippine and Badminton Asia Team championship 2022 Malaysia.
Kasun Maduranga by profession is a senior Police officer and appointed by BWF as a Line judge while he is also a Badminton Asia accredited umpire started since 2002.
He also successfully officiated in 15 international tournaments.
