An Edmonton teenager has his sights set on international competition, including the Olympic Games two years from now, after winning two national table-tennis titles last week. Sanuka Herath won gold in both the U19 Boys singles and doubles categories at the 2026 Canadian Junior Table Tennis Championships held in Winnipeg. The 15-year-old said it was an “amazing” feeling. “I put a lot of training into it for about the last two, three months,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday. “I trained about six hours a day.” The 15-year-old has qualified for next year’s Pan American Games, for which he will need Canadian citizenship, which he is in the process of securing. Herath moved to Canada with his family five years ago. In two years’ time, Herath hopes to travel to Los Angeles to represent Canada at the next Summer Olympic Games. “That’s my number one goal,” said the student at Vimy Ridge Academy. Herath started focusing on the competitive side of the sport as an eight-year-old in his native Sri Lanka. He moved to Edmonton two years later but retained the services of his coach in his home country. He said when he first moved to the city, he considered quitting table tennis but was encouraged to keep honing his skills after he joined the Edmonton Table Tennis Club. “I really got involved, and then my coach was like, ‘Keep playing, get a robot,’” Herath said. “So we got one, and I just continued playing.” He uses the robot for practise, perching it on the opposite end of the table from Herath during sessions. “It’s basically a ball feeder,” he said. It gives one ball at a time, and I can play anything I can with a human." Hasitsha Samaraweeda, Herath’s coach, says his student’s hard work is paying off. “It’s difficult, but it’s a process,” Samaraweeda said from Sri Lanka. “Starting the process is very important.” Herath said next steps for him in his table-tennis journey is to seek out more competition as Edmonton has relatively few high-level players compared to other parts of Canada and the world. “I’m thinking about travelling outside the country to train so I can get good enough to play in the Olympics,” he said. “It’s going to mean a lot.” With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Noah Rishaug
