Will this be the turning point for Sri Lankan Track & Field?

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The recently concluded Commonwealth Games held in Gold Coast, Australia saw the largest medal haul ever for the Island nation, but sadly none of them came from Track and Field.

Sri Lanka was represented by 13 track and field athletes at the Games.  Five female and 2 male athletes took part in individual events and alongside a Men’s 4X100m team, consisting of 5 athletes, made up the 13. What were the expectations from the athletes and how did they fare?

It’s fair to say that the Sri Lankan athletic fraternity was looking at a bare minimum of one medal. It has been 20 years since track and field had medal finishes; the last time was when Sriyani Kulawansa won Silver in the Women’s 100 hurdles and Sugath Thilakarathne won Bronze in the Men’s 400m at the 1998 Games in Kuala Lumpur.

Men’s and Women’s Javelin was in the forefront of Sri Lanka’s medal hopes, but it was still, realistically, an outside chance.  In the Women’s Javelin Nadeeka Dilhani Lekamge holds the national record at 58.11m and the hope was for her to achieve a Personal Best(PB) and edge towards the 60m mark which could have yielded possible medal/ Top 6 finish. With the competition featuring only 8 athletes Dilhani started off slow in the final, her first throw measuring at 51.13m, with her second at 53.58 and third measured at 56.02m. With three throws remaining, the possibility of achieving a PB and the national record was still very much a possibility but losing rhythm, Dilhani’s 4th hit 53.73m, 5th 49.55 and final measured just 53.82m, making her third throw her best at 56.02m. Dilhani ended up in 5th place overall. The bronze was won by Olympic Silver medalist  South African Sunette Viljoen (62.08m) while Aussies Kathryn Mitchell (68.92m) and Kelsey- Lee Roberts (63.89m) claimed Gold and Silver respectively.

In the Men’s event, Sri Lanka had the luxury of three throwers who have pierced the 80m barrier, with Sampath Ranasinghe chosen to represent the country. Being in the shadow of his two peers, National Champion Waruna Dayaratne and National record holder/Olympian Sumedha Ranasinghe, Sampath came good at the final National trials for the Games with a PB of 81.22m.  Dayaratne was attending a training in Finland at the time and Sumedha’s best measured at 76.82 at the trials.

Sampath showed potential in the qualification rounds with a throw of 74.72, but could only hit a best of 70.15 in his first three throws in the final. With only the Top 8 moving to the final round of three throws, Sampath did not measure up.

Sprinter Rumeshika Ratnayake was a last minute addition to the Women’s 200m. Not included in the quota of 12 athletes afforded to the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka, she was sent to the Games by the NOC. Rathnayake who ran her PB 23.40secs at last year’s Asian Athletic Championship had run a Seasonal Best (SB) time of 22.62secs at the Australian Grand prix in March this year.  Ratnayake was placed second in her heat where she improved massively on her SB to be fractions away from her PB clocking 22.43secs. She finished 6th in the semis, clocking 23.60 and had to bow out of the competition.

High jumping veteran Manjula Kumara who is the long-time holder of the national record, having cleared 2.27m in 2004, was getting back to rhythm after multiple injuries which have hampered his career through the years. Manjula cleared 2.24 at the National trials quite comfortably in January, traveled to Australia prior to the Games and was based in Melbourne training under the Olympic High Jump coach Alessandro Biset in hopes of sailing over his own 14-year-old record.  Manjula won Gold at the Victorian open clearing 2.21m and with just two weeks to the Games, he cleared the 2.21m mark again and retired from the event in pain. The old foe of high-soaring Manjula, ‘injury’ was bothering him even during the qualification rounds of the CWG. Manjula jumped 2.21m through pain to qualify for the finals, but had an early exit as he couldn’t clear the 2.18m due to the injury.

The middle-distance duo, Nimali Liyanarachchi and Gayanthika Abeysinghe in the Women’s 800m sparked interest due to recent performances. Nimali laid claim to an over two-decade old record when she ran the then record time of 2:03.50 at the 42nd National Sports Festival in Jaffna but Gayanthika running 2:02.55 stripped her of the record not long after.  Since then the 800m racers have been competing fiercely against each other. Competing in heat 01 Gayanthika finished 8th at 2:04.72 while Nimali recorded a time of 2:08.52. Neither qualified for the final.

Prasad Wimalasiri, who was in good form through the season, was given the nod for the CWG ahead of two other Long Jumpers pushing the 8m mark. He had a good run up to the competition managing to leap 7.93m with +3.1 measured on the wind gauge, in a competition in Brisbane prior to the games and was expected to breach the 8m mark at the CWG. Prasad qualified for the finals with a leap of 7.84m and was close to achieving his personal best of 7.91.  Prasad managed to better his qualification mark in the final where he managed to leap 7.89m, a fraction below his PB.

Hiruni Wijeratne, the Sri Lankan marathoner who resides in the USA, was one of the very first athletes to achieve qualification to the Gold Coast games. She gained qualification in style at the Houston marathon, running a national record time of 2:38.35. She continued her good form into the next competition where she won the Mesa-PHX Half Marathon in Arizona clocking 1:14.07 which again was a national record in the half marathon. Hiruni was looking at bettering her PB at the Commonwealth Games which would have paved the way for a new national record in the event. Starting off strong she managed to keep up with the lead pack up until about the 15km mark where she was only 0.56 seconds behind the race leader. But at the 15km mark the harsh conditions hit her hard. Coming from an American winter where she trained prior to the competition, Hiruni’s body started giving way and she was 2:45 mins behind the leader at the halfway mark. Despite the difficulties Hiruni carried on and walked to the finish line in 11th place 16:58 minutes behind the winner and clocked a time of 2:49.38.

The performance the local athletic fraternity craved for and eagerly looked forward to, a moment of magic came in the Men’s 4X100m. This team’s journey to and in the CWG summed up the story of the athletes in the country.

4X100 team was not part of the initial blueprint of the CWG contingent, but since the 400m athletes were unimpressive at the national trials and with the 100m participants achieving good timing, it was decided to send a team of 5 which included National record holder- Himasha Eshan, owner of the fastest sprint recorded in Sri Lanka –  Vinoj Suranjaya, Shehan Ambepitiya of Junior Asian fame, Ashraff Ladeef and Sumesh Wickramasinghe. Having not run in competitions recently no one gave the team a chance to even come out of the heats. But the quartet of Himasha, Shehan, Ashraff and Vinoj who were the 1st men’s relay team from Sri Lanka in 68 years to the Commonwealth Games, clocked 39.47 to earn a spot in the final. The final line-up featured the star-studded Jamaican, South African and English teams. Our speedsters were placed 6th, managing to run the final in 39.08secs, a new national record, replacing the earlier record established by the same quartet in 2015.

This performance drew the attention of the entire nation. It was confirmation that, the will power and commitment we knew our athletes possessed was still out there. It was a testament to hard-work and perseverance. It was the inspiration that Sri Lankan track and field need to come out of the shadows.

With the Sugathadasa stadium now fully restored with a brand new synthetic track, the AASL has announced that an open National trial for the Asian Games will be held on the 26th & 27th with a 2nd and final trial set to be held on the 12th & 13th May. Sri Lanka could not manage a single medal in the previous Asian Games held in 2010 and 2014 and the AASL is hoping to send a team of 18 track and field athletes. With foreign competitions like the Asian Grand prix, Singapore open, Taipei open, Thailand open and Korean open set to take place in the months of June and July, the athletes will have the much-needed international exposure. The National Athletic Championship is set to be held from the 03th to 5th of August and will be the send off competition for the Sri Lankan athletic team to the Asian Games.