Triple international Mahesh Sabaratnam who passed away in Toronto, Canada on November 30, 2014 at the age of 72. represented Sri Lanka in Rugby, Boxing and Weightlifting. His real name was Muttiah and not Mahesh which he said was a nickname given to him by the veteran journalist M.E. Marikar. He never did any sport at school and started his education at Thakshila Vidyalaya, a school which is housed along Katugastota Road, opposite Vidyartha College and is one of the oldest schools in Kandy.
Mahesh Sabaratnam belonged to a rare breed that had represented the country in three sports. Another sportsman from Kandy who represented the country in three sports was Col. CS Fernando who represented the country in football, rugby and athletics.
It was Kandy YMCA which helped him in Iron sport where S.A. WIjewickrema jnr gave a big hand in coaching, and Niyas Majeed too helped him, Then he joined E.W. Balasuirya's Kandy Lake Club, thanks to Niyas Majeed who spotted him at the Kandy YMCA and took him to Kandy Lake Club . He was also a body builder and was adjudged ‘Mr Kandy YMCA’ at a local physical culture contest.
As a weight lifter Sabaratnam represented the country at the World Games in 1966 as well as the Asian Games. He won his weight class at the National Weightlifting Championships for 10 successive years and was selected as the best lifter for four years.
Lifting in the middleweight class, he was unbeaten from 1963 to 1967 and broke records at the Novices meets, Intermediate meets and the Junior and Senior Nationals. He set up several records. It was a case of setting up a new record and breaking in the next meet.. At that time weightlifting had three segments - namely press, snatch, clean and jerk and the total. He held all four national records in his body weight category. He was also an International Grade Weightlifting Referee appointed by the National Olympic Committee and had officiated in many important meets. During his last days he was running a gymnasium in Canada. It was really at the iron sport of weightlifting which he really shone at first. In the middleweight class. Kandy YMCA gave the best for him at that time the Kandy YMCA was housed on a municipal property around the Kandy Lake.
E.W. Balasuriya gave him employment at the Club and it was his first job and due to some good coaching coming from ruggeites like Sydney Ratwatte and Maurice Perera at Kandy Lake Club in the early 1960s, Saba took to rugby seriously and played as a wing three quarter for Kandy Lake Club. He was virtually unstoppable in his runs and was also a fine tackler.
After that Kandy Lake Club came out as Kandy RFC for professional reasons, he played for this club and later Saba was invited by CR and FC that had a crack back division in 1973. The halves combination was made up of Tikiri Marambe and Irwin Howie, Jagath Fernando and Didacus de Almeida the centres and on the wings were skipper Reginald Bartholumeusz and the muscular Mahesh Sabaratnam and full back Ronnie Schokman making up pretty much a Sri Lanka line.
Some of his appearances for the country in rugby were against Bosuns, Blackheath, Paris University, Emu RFC from Australia, London Welsh and also in the then All India Rugby Tournament.
He played for the Sri Lanka team in the 1974 Rugby Asiad in Colombo in which Sri Lanka ended runners up to Japan who won 44-6 in front of a large crowd despite heavy rain. The Sri Lanka team was led by Indrajith Coomaraswamy who had players like Hadji Omar, Alphonso Rodrigo, Jeyer Rodriguesz, Lanil Tennakoon, Maiya Gunasekara, Jeffrey Yu, Anton Benedict, Hanzil Samad, Hafi Abdeen, Jeffrey de Jong, Didacus de Almeida, Omar Sheriff, Mahesh Sabaratnam, Charles Wijewardena, Nimal Malagamuwa, Bryan Baptist, M.F. Fernando, Clifford Elhart, Shafi Jainudeen and G.B. Gunadasa.
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