Sri Lanka’s premier mid distance runner, Indunil Herath, who has made the 800m his own in the local arena, will train in Kenya ahead of the Asian Games which is scheduled to be held in Indonesia in August.
National champion in the men’s 800m at the 43rd National Sports Festival held in Kotawila stadium in Matara was an exceptional performer in the event throughout 2017. Indunil was impressive at the Asian Indoor Games where he managed to establish a new national indoor record in the heats of the event and bettered it in the semifinals. He ran an even better time of 1.49.45 secs in the final to become the first Sri Lankan to run a sub 1.50 secs in an indoor arena but fell agonizingly short of a well-deserved gold in the final and had to be satisfied with a Silver medal at the championship.
Herath’s personal best performance in the Men’s 800m is 1:48.69 was clocked back in 2014 in Colombo. With his form improving vastly and with the improvement he has shown at the latter part of last season, Herath is capable of running sub 1:47 in the event which would place the aspiring athlete in medal contention at the Asian Games. Herath won the Gold medal at the South Asian games in 2016 in Guwahati, India with a time of 1:51.46 and improved on his time last year at the Asian Championship clocking 1:50.57 despite finishing in the 5th place.
Herath flew to Kenya on the 27th of December, on a fully sponsored training by the Department of Sports development and will attend a 7 month training amidst some of world’s best athletes until July before returning to the country to join the Squad which will take flight to Indonesia for the Asian Games.
