Lt Col Thilak Dissanayake Shotgun Referee for Olympics

On Jul 15, 2021

Forty nine year old Lt.Col. Thilak Chandana Dissanayake of Sri Lanka Army is an Old Boy of Dharmaraja College,Kandy who is the first person to be selected for participation of Shooting discipline as a Shotgun Referee at the XXXII Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo, Japan from 23rd of July to 8th of August, 2021. He is a Bachelor of Labour Education oF the University of Colombo and he passed out in 2013.

Lt. Col. Thilak Chandana Dissanayake was nominated by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) and Asian Shooting Confederation(ASC) in various appointments in International Competitions. He is a Chariman and a Member of the Jury of appeal as well as a Shotgun Referee and he was in the Selection Committee of the Korea World Cup shooting Championship which was held in the year 2019. In the year 2020 he was nominated for the President’s Award which is to be held in October this year and he was awarded a Medal of Honour for Shooting in the year 2019.

In School, he played Soccer as Left extreme and as an Athlete he won 1500 Metre races for a Number of years. He has participated as a Referee, Chairman of the Jury of Appeal in the ISSF World Cup Meets, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and South Asian Games International Shooting Competitions such as ISSF World Cup shotgun as a Jury member and Referee which was held in Mexico in 2019, in 2018 as a Shotgun Referee at Asian Games held in Indonesia.

He became the shotgun Champion at the 4th Asian Shotgun Championship and in 2015 he was the Chairman of the Jury at the same championship which was held in UAE, as an Asian Air Gun champion of Rifle/Pistol held in Kuwait in 2014, at the Commonwealth games held in 2018 in the Gold Coast and he was also a Chief Range Officer of Rifle/Pistol in 2006 in the Asian games held in Colombo.

He has followed a Judges Course at the ISSF in Riffle, Pistol, Shotgun, target control in the year 2003 and has become first with ‘A’ grading for all firing disciplines and a Judges Electronic Scoring Target Course in 2017 and was awarded ‘A’ Grading at a Shotgun Coaches Course in Kuwait in the year 2020.

He is an experienced Riffle and Pistol Shooter from 1995 up to date, a Coach of regimental firing team from 2004, Secretary of the Sri Lanka Army Small Arms Association.

Lt. Col.Thilak Chandana’s intention is to be a World Technical Delegator in the Shooting discipline in future and he is thankful to Lt.Gen. Shavendra Silva and the high Ranking officials of the Sri lanka Army for the encouragement and support given to him to come to this standard as an International Technical Official for Shooting discipline.