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Dulgani Edirisinghe of Janashakthi Insurance and Udaya Weerakoon of SriLankan Airlines receive their Best Shuttlers awards from the chief guest, Lal de Mel, Managing Director and General Manager, CIC Paints (Pvt) Ltd., at the Dulux Inter Firm Team Badminton Championship awards ceremony, held in Mt. Lavinia. Also in the picture, President, Mercantile Badminton Association, GaminI Jayasuriya. (Photo by Bernand Chandrasekara)

by Dhammika Ratnaweera
Udaya Weerakoon and Dulgani Edirisinghe played major roles to enable Sri Lankan Airlines and Janashakthi Insurance take the ‘A’ Division men’s and women’s titles respectively, in the ‘Dulux’ Inter firm team Badminton Championships which concluded at S. Thomas’ College Gymnasium Mt. Lavinia on Sunday.

Weerakoon, the former National Champion, came back with a lot of confidence winning his two games in the finals while Dulgani, the wife of National men’s champion Thushara Edirisinghe, won her two games to ensure their teams’ victories. Both Weerakoon and Dulgani were adjudged best men’s and women’s shuttler in the ‘A’Division.

In the men’s ‘A’Division final, Sri Lankan Airlines defeated Sampath Bank 3-1 to take the title while Janashakthi Insurance beat defending champions Seylan Bank 2-1 in the womens section.

In the mens ‘A’, final , Thushan de Silva of Sampath Bank beat Palinda Halangoda from Sri Lankan Airlines 15-10, 15-7 to give the former an early lead. However, the experienced Udaya Weerakoon scored a hard fought (15-9,17-16) victory over Sampath Bank player Randesh Vaas to equalize. Anuraji de Silva, the former National player, scored an easy 15-3, 15-6 win over Sampath Bank’s P.Weerakoon to put SL Airlines in the lead.

Udaya Weerakoon paired off with M.S.M. Azver to beat P. Weerakoon and N.C. Liyanage in the doubles 15-3, 15-4 and guide the Airlines victory.

In the womens ‘A’ division final, National Champion Chandrika de Silva beat rank two player Dilhani de Silva of Janashakthi Insurance 13-10, 11-7 to give Seylan the lead. However Dulgani Edirisinghe defeated Nilmini Apurnima of Seylan 11-2, 11-2 then paired off with Dilhani to score a 15-8, 15-4 victory over Chandrika and M. de Silva in the doubles to give Janashakthio a 2-1 lead and the womens’A’ Division title.

Meanwhile, Industrial and Financial Systems (IFS) emerged overall champions with the highest number of points.

The tournament conducted by the Mercantile Badminton Association was sponsored CIC Paints (Pvt. ) Ltd. for the third successivel year. Lal de Mel Managing Director and General Manager of CIC was the Chief Guest and Gave away the main awards . Presidents of the MBA Gamini Jayasuriya and SLBA Dr A.R.L. Wijesekara, were present at the tournament.