Priyantha aims to attract professionals
Lalith Priyantha has come up with a brilliant idea during the pandemic period to keep people engaged in sports activity by inviting professionals to play table tennis.
“I want to invite professionals such as doctors, engineers, lawyers, and even politicians to play table tennis,” said the former three-time national champion who is a renowned coach.
“I was thinking most of the people who play other sports have a place to practice. But although people love to play table tennis, they don’t have opportunities to play the sport. There is no one who conducts table tennis coaching for veterans over 40. Therefore, I thought of starting it for the first time,” said Priyantha who wants to attract top professionals to the sport.
“Those days when I used to play, I noticed there were many graduates, entrepreneurs, lawyers, engineers and doctors taking part. Now only the children of people of this calibre are playing. We have enough children of professionals playing table tennis,” he pointed out.
“The calibre of people playing table tennis has gone down. I thought why not do something for table tennis which is good for physical exercise. I know only table tennis. I am there because of table tennis. I want to give something back to the game,” he declared.
Playing table tennis will serve as a recreation as well as improve your lifestyle among other benefits, according to Priyantha who is attached to AIA Insurance dealing with health cover.
“There is physical activity and hand-eye coordination, making it a very useful exercise for veterans. It will be also benefit Sri Lanka table tennis as a whole when more people start playing,” as Priyantha said claiming that World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga endorsing table tennis as helpful to cricketers as well.
Priyantha emphasised that table tennis was a safe sport since it has nothing to do with personal contact.
“You can maintain social distance while playing. In fact, there is a distance of nine feet or more between players. We will break training into groups of six in three tables following health guidelines,” said Priyantha a former President of the Table Tennis Association.