Rumeshika Ratnayake the South Asian medal sprinter once again came to the fore when she won the women’s 100m event clocking 12.04 seconds while Chamod Yodasinghe finished first at the men’s 100m at the first selection trial of the Asian Games and senior and junior Asian athletic championship which was held at Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium Diyagama.
The two day trial was more successful while one junior National record and Senior National record were established by the athletes and this was a good sign said National Athletic coach Y. K Kularatne. Janidu Lakwijaya established a 110m hurdles record with a time of 13.82 seconds.
Rumeshika Ratnayake hails from Kegalle under the guidance of K. D. Nanda was away in Australia recently but she was not in a good rhythm after back home during the last few domestic meets and once again she was well placed at this trial-winning women’s 100 m with impressive timing and also won the women’s 200m race with 23.75 seconds.
Yodasinghe who finished first in men’s 100 m and Rumeshika were declared the fastest man and woman at the. trials Safia Yamic having 12.25 seconds finished second in women’s 100m while S. Dharmakeerthi was second with 10.59 seconds in the mens 100m race.
Tharushi Karunaratne the promising athlete from Walala A. Ratnayake National school once again came up with a good performance winning the 400m women’s race with 53.41 seconds. Tharushi also created an upset when she won the women’s 800m in 2 minutes and 01.39 seconds and she also broke her own junior record of 800m with this superb timing. In fact, Tharushi’s timing was the second-best 800m women’s timing as well as the best timing recorded in Sri Lanka at this women’s 800m event. Tharushi’s achievement was more significant while she was able to beat the 800m women’s National champion Gayanthika Abeyratne and this was a good sign added Y. K Kularatne the National athletic coach. Gayanthika Abeyratne was placed second in 800 m with 2.01.54 seconds which was the fourth-best timing of this event while Asian medalist Nimali Liyanarachchi was unable to finish the 800m race due to injury.
Meanwhile, Kalinga Kumarage and N.D Rajakaruna had a good battle at mens 400m while Kumarage once again showed his power recoding 46.27seconds to win the race N. D Rajakaruna had to be satisfied with second place clocking 46.49 seconds.
Asian athletic championship medalist Gayanthika Abeyratne once again proved her power winning 1500m first place clocking 4 minutes 12.53 seconds while Nilan Ratnayake won the second place with 4 minutes 15. 30 seconds. In fact this was not Nilani’s key event as she was the record holder of women’s 3000m steeple chase last time narrowly missed her Olympic chance.
At this trial, Nilani Ratnayake was placed first at 3000m steeple chase clocking 9 minutes and 40.24 seconds. D. H Kumara won the men’s 1500 m race with 3 minutes 48.62 seconds while T. Dinushika won the women’s high jump event with 1.60m.
This was the first trial conducted by Sri Lanka Athletics while they have a plan to conduct another trial to pick the best team for the Asian Games as well as the Senior and Junior Asian Athletic Championships.
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