Young table-tennis prospect takes silver in Croatia and continues an international run worth watching
Sri Lanka has another young sporting name worth remembering.
Taavi Samaraweera has won the silver medal in the Under-11 singles event at the WTT Youth Contender in Varaždin, Croatia, continuing an impressive run on the international junior table-tennis circuit.
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The young Sri Lankan reached the final after navigating an international field before finishing runner-up, giving Sri Lanka another podium finish far from home.
More significantly, it was not an isolated success. The result in Croatia gives Taavi back-to-back international podium finishes and suggests that Sri Lanka may have discovered a genuinely exciting young table-tennis prospect.
There is always a temptation when a very young athlete succeeds internationally to immediately attach enormous expectations to the achievement. That would be unfair. An 11-year-old should still be allowed to be an 11-year-old, irrespective of how well he handles a table-tennis bat.
What matters now is that the talent is recognised, properly coached and given enough international competition to develop.
Sri Lankan sport has traditionally been rather good at celebrating athletes after they have succeeded and considerably less accomplished at providing everything they require before they succeed.
Taavi’s progress offers an opportunity to do it the other way around.
There is plenty of time before anyone starts talking about senior championships, Olympic Games or national records. For now, a young Sri Lankan travelled to Croatia, competed against some of the world’s emerging talent and came home with silver.
In a newspaper containing constitutional battles, corruption cases, mass graves and fishermen being arrested in the Palk Strait, we are perfectly entitled to enjoy that.
Well played, young man.
Be that as it may, at 11 years old Taavi Samaraweera has already discovered something many of us spend considerably longer looking for: how to put Sri Lanka on the right side of the scoreboard.
