Former Sri Lankan athlete Anula de Costa is going great guns in Australia as a coach, education facilitator, assessor and mentor to the sport down under.
She has been the coach of the Australian team from the year 2000 to 2019 and was the team head coach and manager of the Australian team in 2009.
Anula became the National long jump champion in 1983 and since then she represented Sri Lanka in international meets for some time.
She was so engrossed in athletics that she went further ahead and became the sports and physical education teacher and an athletic coach since 1984.
From 1994 to mid 1998 Anula was a member of the Sri Lanka AAA executive committee and was looking forward to improve the standard of athletes at that time.
She was a physical education instructor at the Colombo University from mid 1996 to ’98 and was keen to pursue with her education in sports and in 1998 left Sri Lanka to take up studies in Australia.
The year 2000 was a very eventful year for her. She completed her Post Graduate Studies and was a volunteer as an official at the Sydney Olympics. That same year she was the first Sri Lankan female official at the Paralympics held in Sydney.
From that point onwards Anula was the athletic coach of the Australian team at several International championships and an education facilitator, assessor and mentor for the squad.
Later she upgraded herself as an IAAF level one technical official through Australia Athletics.
In the meantime Anula was awarded the coach of the year prize in 2018 and was adjudged as the national junior coach of the year.
Her best achievement was when she was awarded the Australia Sports Medal in 2019, an award that is achieved once in a life time.
She was chosen as the Australian team coach and coordinator for the 2023 Youth Paralympic Commonwealth Games.
Anula has also completed a diploma course in exercise and sports science and also got a Masters in Applied Science in Human Performance in 2005 according to KLF Wijedasa who was also an athlete and coach for many years.