Manjula given another life
Despite high jumper Manjula Kumara receiving another chance to make his final attempt in getting into the 2016 Rio Olympics Sri Lankan contingent, uncertainty looms over track athletes. They to ascertain if one of them could manage to break the timing barrier at the ongoing 94th National Athletic Championships which is being manually conducted. By yesterday, at the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium in Diyagama, the second day of the annual track and field meet of Sri Lanka, the events meandered without even a single meet record. Kumara, whose personal best was 2.27metres, cleared 2.17 and 2.24 in his first attempt, failing the Olympic qualifying standard, which is 2.29metres, by a whisker. He won the Men's gold medal in high jump ahead of D. Karunaratne (2.17m) and S. Jayamal (2.14) on Friday and will get another life after Athletic Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) decided to offer him a special trail today. Though some were of the view that it was not a good move but in general many experts were in favour of the AASL move.
“It was so close, yet too far. I took off well in the first two attempts but could not complete. But in my third attempt, I was nearly there but my foot hit on the bar when I was landing. It was tragic. I will do my best to make maximum use of the given opportunity,” Kumara stated.
Sri Lanka Army athletes took the bigger portion of honours yesterday claiming five of the 11 final events held. They won the Men's 1000m, Women's Javelin Throw, Men's 100m, Women's 1500m and Men's 400m events. Sprinter Himasha Eshan clocked 10.5seconds to win the Men's 100m while his team mate Mohamed Ashrof finished neck-to-neck at the same clock. L. Wickramasinghe, another soldier timed 10.6seconds to finish third where eight of the nine finalists were from Army.
The day took off with the Men's 10000m event which was won the Army runner Vijitha Kumara with timing of 31:17.9. His team mates S. Rathnayake and Kumara Bandara finished second and third respectively with timings of 31:21.0 and 31:26.7. Sri Lanka Navy's J.D. Perera won the Men's Shot Putt event after reaching 14.94 metres while Army athletes Samitha Jayawardana (14.75) and S. Jayakodi (14.27) were placed second and third respectively.
Ace thrower Nadeeka Lakmali could not come to her usual form as she finished at second to N.D. Lekamge, who reached 56.06metres in the Women's Javelin Throw event. Lakmali achieved 54.98m. Finishing third behind the Army duo was M.P. Silva of Navy, who threw 51.76metres. Anitha Jegatheshwaran, representing Jaffna DAA, achieved 3.30metres to win the Women's Paul Vault event. K.L. Perera of Air Force and A.H. Dilrukshi of Army both reached 3.10metres apiece but finished at second and third respectively.
Sri Lanka Schools athlete H.P. Balasooriya won the Women's Triple Jump event with a leap of 12.79metres. D.E. Ratnasiri jumped 12.38metres to finish at second while A.S Dulanjani with her best attempt at 12.33metres won the third place. Both represent Sri Lanka Air Force. S.A. Vidanagamage of Air Force clocked 12.1seconds to win the Women's 100m sprint while Army sprinters M.A.S.S. Jayathilaka and V.L. Sugandi identically clocked 12.2seconds but were placed second and third respectively.
Army's V.K. Jayasundara clocked 4:37.3 to win the Women's 1500metres event as D.K.N. Karunaratne of Air Force finished second with a timing of 4:41.6. Army's H.M. Nandasena clocked 4:45.2 to finished at third. Hemantha Kumara of Sri Lanka Police won the Men's 1500metre event with a timing of 3:51.9 while Air Force's W.G. Sanjeewa clocked 3:54.8 to complete at second. Among eight Army runners, Janaka Pradeep clocked 3:55.7 to finish at third. Air Force's L.A. Nimali won the Women's 400metre event with a timing of 54.6seconds while Army athletes W.U. Ratnakumari (54.9) and D.G. Pathmakumari (55.5) completed at second and third respectively. Ruwan Kumara gave Army their fifth top finish as he went on to time 47.2 seconds to win the Men's 400metre final. His team mate Devinda Peiris finished closed behind at second 0.1 seconds behind as A.M. Gunaratne finished at third with a timing of 47.4seconds. The meet will end today.