Boxing referees Shiromala, Weerasena to officiate in C’wealth Games

Among the first batch of athletes departing for the XXII Commonwealth Games in Birmingham today are two boxing technical officials.

They are Sri Lanka’s one and only Olympic woman boxing referee Nelka Shiromala and former Peradeniya Central College boxing star Susantha Weerasena.

An accomplished international boxing official who has won many laurels as a world-class referee, this will be W/Chief Inspector Shiromala’s second Commonwealth Games after creating history in Gold Coast 2018. She created history in Tokyo 2021 by becoming the first female sports official from Sri Lanka to be selected as a referee in an Olympic event.

Susantha Weerasena

Winner of the award for Asia’s best referee in 2017, Shiromala a pioneer Sri Lanka woman boxing official and the only one to achieve 3-star status, she continues to star in the ring as a referee while officiating a the Men’s World Boxing Championship held in Serbia and the Women’s World Boxing Championship held in Turkey. She officiated in the 81kg event final of the men’s tournament and 51kg final in the women’s competition.

Weerasena was a stylish boxer who won the Best Boxer award at the TB Jayah meet in 1982 and was a three-time winner of the premier Stubbs Shield inter-school boxing meet. Having become a national referee and judge in 1999, he qualified to the international panel in 2005 achieving 2-star ranking in 2017 and 3-star status in 2019.

He has officiated in top meet at Asian level such as the Asian Women’s Boxing Championship in 2007 (India) and Indonesia (2015), Ulanbaatar Cup, Mongolia (2017) and Thailand Open (2018 and 2019). More recently he has officiated at the Asian Junior Championship and Asian Youth Championship.

Assistant Director of Education (Sports), Zonal Education Office, Nuwara Eliya, this will be Weerasena’s first appearance at a major sporting event such as the Commonwealth Games.