Panchali Janodya Adikari, 15-year-old student of Mahamaya Girls School, Kandy is a badminton player who came out with outstanding performance to win the Under 15 singles title at the Junior Badminton Nationals in 2018. The tournament was held from October 24 to November 12 at the Lumbini Vidyalaya and Royal College,Colombo Sports Complex.
She was placed Rank No.1 in the under 15 girls’ category. In the same year she got an opportunity to follow a badminton training course conducted for ranked U-15 and U-17 badminton players of Asian countries at the Prakash Padukone Academy, Bangalore,India.
Panchali started playing badminton at the age of, when she was a grade two student of Gothami Balika Vidyalaya,Kandy under two reputed coaches, R.S.Dahanayake and R.Lasantha. She moved to Mahamaya Girls College in 2017 for higher studies and showed further improvement.
In 2019 she registered several victories as she won two titles at the Open Defenders Badminton Championships. She won both Under 17 singles and doubles partnered by Manudi Nithara of Sujatha Balika Vidyalaya, Matara.
In addition she won the under 17 sngles title at the SSC Open Badminton Championship and with her performances she was ranked the No.1 in the under 17 singles and also ranked No.1 in the under 17 Doubles.
Panchali attended a training programme for badminton held at Kasan City in Russia in 2019 and gathered more knowledge in badminton. She was 14 years old at that time and was the youngest badminton player in the Sri Lankan badminton players who attended this programme.
Despite no tournaments have conducted due to Covid-19 pandemic, she is continuing her training.
Panchali’s ambition is to win a medal at the Asian Games and she thanks her coaches, former principal of Mahamaya, Indra Withanachchi, present principal, Lalitha Egodawela and the Prefect of Games Nilu wijekoon for their support and encouragement to improve her skills.
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