Olympian and Asian gold medalist Sugath Thilakaratne was sworn in yesterday in front of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake as the Deputy Sports Minister of the new government. This was the first time in Sri Lanka’s sports history that an athlete who represented an Olympic Games became a Deputy Minister.
No one has yet managed to break the Sri Lankan record set by Sugath Thilakarathne in the 400m event in 44.61 seconds at the Fukuoka Asian Athletics Championships in Japan in 1998.
Sugath Thilakaratne, who was born on 30 July 1973 in Nortonbridge, later became known in the field of athletics as a sprinter and took the name of Sri Lanka to the world level through the 400m event.
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he defeated defending champion Michael Johnson in the preliminary round of the 400 meters.
Sugath Thilakaratne won the 400m gold medal at the 1998 Asian Games held in Thailand, bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia and the 2002 Asian Athletics Championships.
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