Srimali Samarakoon an outstanding weightlifter

At present Srimali is selected to participate at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship to be held in Singapore from 20th to 24th of October,2021 in the Senior Body weight category of 45 Kg. weight class and at the Asian Games to be held in the year 2022 and she is under strenuous training although the current Covid epidemic is a hindrance to her training.

She is still training under the same coach who is a veteran weight lifting coach, Nadeeka Bandara and she started weightlifting from 2011 when she was a student of Habarana Central College. After training she went on to win the All Island National Schools,Junior Nationals and Senior Nationals every year up to the time she left school.

She did her higher studies at Mahamaya Girls School in 2016 and got through the GCE(A/L) with three passes and she got an opportunity to enter the University of Sri Jayawardenapura to do a degree course in Sports Science and Management.

Srimali Samarakoon has represented the Country at the Samoa Youth Commonwealth Games in 2015 in 46 Kg. weight class in Clean and Jerk to lift a total of 125 Kgs.whereas Katherine Jones who contested with her had a total of 126 Kgs. Her next target was to participate at the Commonwealth Games and she has got that opportunity and she is training very hard to participate in this weightlifting contest. She is thankful to her Coach, her parents who encouraged her in studies as well as sports to get admitted to a school like Mahamaya when she came from a rural area.

She is also thankful to the Principals of both Schools as well as the Old Girls Association of Mahamaya and her friends who encouraged her to come to this standard. Her determination gave her good results and she was happy that she was successful in weight lifting despite the lack of equipment and with financial difficulties to perform at this level. She says that she will never give up training in weightlifting.