Sumanthiran Navaratnam, known as Sumana Navaratnam or Summa Navaratnam, was a Sri Lankan track and field athlete, rugby union player, coach and business executive.
23 Facts About Summa Navaratnam
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Summa Navaratnam was regarded as one of the finest sportspeople from Sri Lanka.
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Summa Navaratnam was considered as the oldest living Sri Lankan athlete until his death.
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Sumanthiran Navaratnam was born on 21 May 1925 in Araly, British Ceylon.
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Summa Navaratnam was born as the fifth child in his family.
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Summa Navaratnam married Sri Lankan-born British-American best-selling author Rosemary Jansz and the couple had two daughters, Rosanne and Sharon.
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Summa Navaratnam was later married to Romaine De Zilva and had two children, Kendall and Nadine.
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Summa Navaratnam had 2 grandchildren from Nadine and 2 from Kendall named Kiran and Nikhelle and Thiran and Tristan respectively.
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Summa Navaratnam established himself as a reputed prominent distinguished sportsman at the Royal College in Colombo where he pursued his primary and secondary education.
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Summa Navaratnam gained attention as a school athlete at Royal College at the age of fifteen when he became the youngest Royalist to be awarded the Royal College athletics colours.
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Summa Navaratnam went on to captain the Royal College rugby and athletics teams.
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Summa Navaratnam was then overlooked from the Sri Lankan contingent which participated at the 1948 Summer Olympics and in 1952 Summer Olympics due to nepotism with the selection process at that time.
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Summa Navaratnam represented Ceylon at the 1950 British Empire Games which was held in Auckland, New Zealand, and competed in the men's 100 yards, men's 220 yards and in men's events.
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Summa Navaratnam was slated to compete in the men's 200 yards event but he did not start and was disqualified.
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Summa Navaratnam was fondly called "the fastest man in Asia" after clocking at record 10.4 seconds at the India States Olympic Meet which was held in Madras in 1953.
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Summa Navaratnam began his athletics coaching career with Royal College in 1953.
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Summa Navaratnam retired from athletics in 1955 and pursued his career as a professional rugby player.
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Summa Navaratnam was just one of three local native Sri Lankans along with Leslie Ephraims and Clair Roeloffsz to have been selected to play for the Ceylonese rugby team which was otherwise dubbed as an "all-white" Sri Lankan team.
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Summa Navaratnam was elected as the president of the Ceylon Rugby Football Union in 1972 and was re-elected as the president of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union in 1974.
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Summa Navaratnam went on to become rugby coach of Royal College, Colombo Rugby Football Union and the national team.
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Summa Navaratnam started the Summa Navaratnam Junior Rugby Academy and began coaching children.
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Summa Navaratnam became general manager at the Ceylon and Foreign Trades PLC in 1993 and served in the position for about 16 years before his retirement in 2009.
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Summa Navaratnam was appointed to the board of Ceylon and Foreign Trades and its subsidiaries.