Vimukthi defeated all obstacles to touch gold

Chris Dhambarage

KARATE: Schoolboy Vimukthi Gunaratne had the honour of winning Sri Lanka's final gold medal at the recently concluded 10th South Asian Games concluded recently in Colombo.

The schoolboy from Prince of Wales College Moratuwa put up a magnificent performance to win the gold medal in the kumite event in the under 50 kg weight class defeating his Pakistani opponent in the final.

His success in this event was quite significant considering the fact that his opponent was the favourite and had won the earlier fixtures more convincingly. Gunaratne was under tremendous pressure going into the final but he stuck to his task and delivered the final blow in a spectacular manner.

Gunaratne said that he had studied his opponents tactics in the previous encounters and that helped him to win the final despite the heavy odds against him. In fact Gunaratne, who went into the South Asian Games as a fresher mastered the art and the technique while competing against his more experienced opponents.

And quite amazingly he ended up with a gold medal in his maiden appearance at the South Asian Games. His only previous international experience was when he participated in the Sekuna Open Challenge where he emerged as the runner-up.

Gunaratne of course had made his presence felt in most of the karate events conducted in the Western Province and during the National School Games. He has being associated with the sport for the past eight years having made his debut while representing De Soysa Maha Vidyalaya in Moratuwa.

His parents of course were not very much in favour when he decided to get involved in a sport like karate. They had all the reasons to feel so because Vimukthi was their only son in a family of five. But later on Vimukthi was able to convince them and moved towards Prince of Wales College Moratuwa for higher studies.

He went through a number of difficulties while trying to become a top karate exponent as their only source of income for the family came through their father who was employed as a taylor. They had the embarrassment of shifting from house to house and are still in search of a permanent residence.

Vimukthi was grateful to his coach Ruwan Satharasinghe who was courteous enough to provide even free lessons having realised his student's financial distress. He of course did not have any regrets at the end because Vimukthi had performed the near impossibility by winning a gold medal under most trying circumstances.

The worries of his family turned out to be even more challenging than his opponent on the floor as he fought his way to make a great impact while bringing tears to the eyes of many fans. But more than anyone else his coach Satharasinghe was probably the happiest person on that day because Vimukthi had proved that success could be achieved by overcoming obstacles and barriers.