Sanmugasundaralingam Vaheesan is the first person to play in the Basketball National team from North, and the first Tamil player representing Sri Lanka Basketball team in a foreign tour in 25 years. He has participated in the Middle Asia qualifier for 2011 FIBA Asia Championship for Men held in Delhi,India on 14th - 16th July 2011 representing Sri Lanka Basketball. The team which he represented came back to the country with the runners-up Trophy in the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship.
Vaheesan, born on 21st of November 1989 is an Old Boy of Jaffna Hindu, where he had started his basketball Career. He was trained under the guidance of Mr.San.Thayalan and Mr.T.Sivathas, who were the basketball coaches of Jaffna Hindu. He also got trained by Mr.Ramanan-the District Basketball Coach-Jaffna. On completing his Advance level studies, he Joined the Sri Lankan Air-force where he was employed as a full time basketball player.
Eventually his hard work made him a way to enter the National Basketball pool for the first time in 2010. He was trained at the pool for one year and he has improved enough to seal a place for him in the team among the other experienced giants.He has been ranked No.9 in the team that participated in the Middle Asia qualifier for 2011 FIBA Asia Championship.
Vaheesan personally broke many records for Jaffna Hindu College and for Jaffna district/Northern province in the field of Sports. He was the first person to seal a Gold Medal for Jaffna Hindu in Athletics in more than 30 years of time. He got his First Gold Medal for Shot-Put in under 19 Boys in 2008 at the Junior National Athletic Meet. In 2010 he was the third best performer in Shot-put event in SriLanka with couple of Gold Medals and couple of Bronze Medals in Various Occasions.
He struggled for financial support to carry his sports career in both Athletic and Basketball. But he was unable to grab any sponsor since he was not representing any of the national team at that time. Finally he got an offer from Air-force as a basketball player for their team. And he grabbed that opportunity and continued his Basketball, though he could not pursue his athletic career.
He represented the Air-force basketball team which took the runners-up trophy for the first time in 27 years in an elite clubs tournament in SriLanka. And now he is the only person from the Air-force Basketball team representing in the Srilanka Basketball team. He will be going on many foreign tours with the National Basketball team.
He thanked the kind hearts from the Jaffna Hindu Community from various Countries who came forward to help him financially in his tour to India. As basketball is not a popular sports in Sri Lanka, it does not receive much financial support from the government. Thus, individual players have to depend on personal sponsors for their foreign tours.
