Four Lankans stands a chance for World Athletic Championships

Four Lankan athletes stand the chance to be a part of the World Athletics Championships to be held in England from August 4 to 13, states AASL sources.

According to the qualifying standards set by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), two Sri Lankan athletes have already qualified. They are Anuradha Indrajit Cooray and Hiruni Wijeratne. Both are marathon runners.

Other than that, Nimali Liyanarachchi who won the Gold at the 800 m at the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships held in India.

She did not qualify but as the current Asian champion, she got the chance to represent Sri Lanka in England.

Pending decisions are javelin thrower Waruna Lakshan Dayaratne. According to IAAF World Rankings, he is in 29th place. Thirty two javelin throwers will be selected for the event worldwide. The cutoff date to qualify for the event is July 23 mid night. If no one has qualified by that time Waruna Lakshan Dayaratne will get the opportunity to take part in the event states the Athletics Association of Sri Lanka.

The qualifying standard for the world championship is 83.00 m. Waruna Lakshan’s personal best is 82.19 m. Last week at the Asian Championships in India Waruna Lakshan cleared 76.78 m. and occupied eighth spot.

Anuradha Indrajit Cooray qualified directly for the Marathon. He qualified in 2016 at the South Asian Games (SAG) India clocking 2hrs 15mins 38secs. The qualifying time for the World Championships is 2:17.00 secs.

Hiruni Wijeratne qualified in the Women’s Marathon in May this year in the United States with a time of 2: 43mins 31secs. The World Qualifying standard for the event is 2:45.00.

There is the question that Hiruni Wijeratne is a dual citizen. She was born in Sri Lanka but had been residing in the USA since she was 11-years-old. She has asked to represent Sri Lanka but the IAAF has not given her a direct answer as yet. She is hoping that the IAAF will favour her request to represent Sri Lanka.

Sanath Abeysekera was the Manager cum Coach of the team. He is the coach of Nimali Liyanarachchi, the 800 metres runner.

Twenty three athletes (15 men and eight women) represented Sri Lanka at the 22nd Asian Championships in India where Sri Lanka displayed good performances after a long time. Sri Lanka bagged one Gold and four Silvers. The Silver Medals were won by Rumeshika Ratnayake (200 m), Nadeesha Dilhani Lekamge (Javelin), Gayanthika Abeyratne (800 m) and 4X400m men’s Relay team (Tharusha Dhananjaya, Kalinga Kumarage, Ajith Premakumara and Dilip Ruwan).

Only two athletes reached personnal best performance in India. They are Rumashika Ratnayake and Nadeesha Dilhani Lekamge.

Nimali Liyanarachchi’s and Gayathika Abeyratne were placed second an third in the 800m finals but Sri Lanka successfully appealed after it emerged that the Indian runner had blocked the Sri Lankan athletes on her way to finish the race first.

As a result the Indian athlete was disqualified. As a result Nimali was awarded the Gold and Gayanthika was presented with the Silver. Sri Lanka could have won two other medals at this event. First it was the 100metres final where Rumeshika was disqualified off a false start. But, triple jumper Vidusha Lakshani was rather unfortunate. In the final she had a good jump initially, but, the judges came up with red flag. However, upon a protest that was lodged by Lakshani the authorities gave another jump a while later, but by then she had warmed her self down. That effort was meaningless.

Sri Lanka won five medals after a long spell and the indications are that Sri Lanka has definitely surged ahead in the sport.

The last time Sri Lanka won a Gold Medal was in 2009 at the Guangzhou Championships in China. Sri Lanka were unable to win any Gold at the meets which followed in 2011 (Kobe), 2013 (Pune), 2015 (Wuhan).

The last medal was a Bronze at the 2015 Wuhan Asian Athletic Meet.

There were six official coaches for the Sri Lanka team and six personal coaches. There was a tussle between the coaches as the athletes paid heed to their personal coaches. As a result the management was unable to perform a proper administration. The personal coaches were instigated by the athletes as the athletes insisted that they cannot proceed without their personal coaches. That is how the misunderstandings arose. Ultimately the Sports Minister decided to send both sets of coaches.

India as the host country won a large number of medals – 12 Gold Medals, 5 Silver and 12 Bronze. This is the first time that they were able to win such a number of Gold. China was second with 8 Gold, Seven Silver and 5 Bronze - thus creating a big change.

The 2019 Asian Championships is scheduled to be held in Doha, Qatar.