The second day of the 23rd Asian Athletic Championship, which is held in Doha Qatar saw 5 Sri Lankan athletes participate in their respective events. The second day of the competition turned out to be a disappointing outing for the Island nation with couple of medal prospects failing to make it to the podium.
Asian Athletic Championship 2019 | News, photos, videos, fixtures
The 2019 Asian Athletics Championships will be the 23rd edition of the Asian Athletics Championships…
It was a bitter-sweet day in the track for Sri Lanka since some of the athletes did managed to achieve their personal best in the
Women’s 800m, which was the leading medal prospect event for Sri Lanka with both Gold and Silver medalist of the 2017 edition of the Asian Athletic Championship, Gayanthika Abeyrathne and Nimali Liyanarachchi competing in the event. It turned out to be a disappointing race for both athletes with Gayanthika finishing 4th clocking 2:05.74 while Nimali was placed 7th clocking a disappointing time of 2:08.69. The gold medal of the event went to Gomathi Marimuthu who ran a personal best time of 02:02.70 which incidently is below both Gayanthika and Nimali’s personal best times.
Photo Album – 23rd Asian Athletics Championship Day 2
Sumedha Ranasinghe was the first to take to the field from Sri Lanka in the Men’s Javelin throw. Jayasinghe, the first Sri Lankan to represent the Olympics and is the current National record holder in the event with a throw of 83.04m was one of Sri Lanka’s most experienced campaigners. Having made the cut to the best 8 after the first round of the competition, Sumedha’s best throw in the event was measured at 73.50m which came in his 6th attempt which placed him in the 8th placed overall.
Having got through to the final after yesterday’s qualification round, Triple jumper Greshan Dhananjaya finished 6th overall in the men’s triple jump final. Dhanajaya seeped to victory in the first national trial with a national record breaking performance of 16.71m but failed to replicate his good form in Doha as his best performance was measured at 16.16m despite surpassing the 16m mark on three occasions. Greshan who was the youngest competitor of the competition will surely take a lot of heart from the experience he received for the future.
Himasha Eshan’s bad fortune at the Asian Athletic Championship continued as he was knocked out in the semifinal of the Men’s 100m. Himasha was in great form prior to the departure of the Asian Athletic Championship where he managed to better his own national record in the 100m clocking an impressive 10.22secs but failed to find his rhythm in Doha. He barely managed to get through the heats being placed third clocking 10.46secs. His performance further slumped as he only managed to clock a disappointing 10.52secs in the semifinal of the event and finished 5th in the heat and did not feature in the final of the Men’s 100m finals.
Tomorrow (23rd) will be the third and the penultimate day of the 23rd Asian Athletic Championship with four athletes set to take part in their events.
- 07.38pm (SL time) – Men’s Long Jump – Prasad Wimalasiri / Dhanushka Piyarathna
- 08.20pm (SL time) – Women’s 3000m Steeple chase – Nilani Ratnayake
- 9.18pm (SL time) – Women’s Triple Jump – Vidusha Lakshani
- 9.45pm (SL time) – Men’s 1500m – Hemantha Kumara
Sri Lanka’s #1 sports hub, ThePapare.com will be at the Khalifa stadium, Doha, Qatar in the Arabian Peninsula to bring all the action of the Asian Athletic Championship to your fingertips. Watch out for previews, live results, live photos, exclusive and insightful videos of the progress of the Sri Lankan contingent at the Asian Athletics Championship 2019.
