By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Sri Lankan sports fans on Saturday were able to witness the performances of another Olympian, who surprisingly had never participated in any of the competitions on her motherland, as US-based long-distance runner Hiruni Wijayarathna ran in the 10000m race at the national athletics championships for the first time in Sri Lanka,
As expected, she won the first place clocking 35 minutes 33.32 seconds to grab her first gold in Sri Lanka and qualify for the South Asian Games.
The 28 year old athlete, who was down here from USA for this purpose said that it was a very vital gold for her as it was the first time she took part at the Nationals. “I had a dream to take part the Nationals for a long long time and I did it with a gold medal in my first event on the second day of the 97th Nationals,” said Hiruni.
She further said that she was very nervous before the event as it was a very emotional contest. “However the race was very tough with one athlete Lanka Ariyadasa from Air Force gave a good fight with me nearly 95 present of the race for the first place. I heard she did her personal best and thanks to her for making some competition in this race,” added Hiruni.
She hopes to maintain her fitness levels well for tomorrow’s 5000m race and then do well at Qatar’s World Championships and the South Asian Games representing Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, South Asia’s fastest runner Himasha Eshan and Vinod Suranjaya came out with a closely fought contest in the 100m final with both of them virtually touching the tape together but Himasha was adjudged winner by 00.01 seconds.
Sugandhika Lakshika who won the 100m hurdles today for the first time finished first place at the women’s 100m with 12.08 seconds while champion sprinter Rumeshiak Ratnayake, unfortunately, suffered a hamstring injury mid part of the race to avoid her chance to win this 100m. Amasha Silva and Sharmila Janz finished with second and third places with recording 12.20 second s and 12.24 seconds respectively. Sumith Madushaka set up a new meet record at the men’s shot put event with a distance of 16.23 m while Samitha Jayawardena 15.88m finished second and he was the previous record-holder in this event.
Meanwhile, Nadeesha Ramanayake of Sri Lanka Army finished first in the 400m with 53.11 seconds while Aruna Dharshana who was not on the track for a while before the start of the race due to an injury came back strongly to win the men’s 400m with a time of 46.76 seconds to enter the South Asian Games. Supun Kushantha won the 1500m race with 3minutes 47.61 seconds while Sanjeewa Lakmal and K.T Fonseka finished second and third places respectively.
The day’s proceedings closed again on an emotional note as it was so at the beginning with, sprinter Shehan Ambepitiya, who had won several medals at the International level for Sri Lanka retired from his athletics career after taking part in the 200m heat event. Ambeypitiya who won the gold medals at the Youth Commonwealth Games excelled the sprint event log time and he has also been an active member of the 4×100 relay team. Ambeypitiya, a renowned athlete for Sri Lanka, started his carrier at Presidents College Rajagiriya and later went to Gateway International under the guidance of coach Sunil Gunawardena. When he was junior sprinter he became the Asian number one as well as world number seven athlete. He won 100m and 200m gold at the Commonwealth junior championships in India 2008. He bowed down to the track after a 16-year old carrier with important milestones at the sprint events.
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