Tokyo Olympics- 12 days to go

by Reemus Fernando

No runner has excelled in multiple track events like Nimali Liyanarachchi during the last one and half decades in Sri Lanka. Except the sprint events of 100 and 200 metres and the track’s longest event the 10,000 metres, Liyanarachchi has competed in all other distances and achieved success at national level in all. As her fellow track and field athletes and coach Sujith Abeysekara would vouch for, it was the perseverance and the dedication that powered Liyanarachchi to achieve success at national and at Asian level. The ‘universality place’ that Liyanarachchi received from World Athletics to take part in the Tokyo Olympics is the ultimate reward for her perseverance.

The middle distance runner from Sooriyawewa alongside Gayanthika Abeyratne were the biggest medal hopes for Sri Lanka at Asian level in the women’s category during the latter part of the last decade. The country was experiencing a medal drought after the retirement of the likes of Susanthika Jayasinghe, Damayanthi Dharsha and Sriyani Kulawansa. With the country experiencing a dearth of medals in sprint events at international events, coaches were starting to focus on middle distance events for success at regional events when Sujith Abeysekara unearthed a gem of an athlete from Sooriyawewa. First trained for endurance events, Liyanarachchi’s initial success came in the 3,000 metres steeplechase, a discipline not many female athletes were willing to persevere a decade ago.

The event was not even a fixture in the regional South Asian Games. The highest a steeplechaser could achieve was the national title. It was on this back drop that Liyanarachchi took it upon herself to make the event one of the look forward to events. She breathed the event a new life in 2008 when she slashed nearly 30 seconds off the then National record to hog limelight. Former national record holder C.G.K. Abeyratne and Eranga Dulakshi entered the fray as the national record changed hands during the next few years. In 2011 she became the first Sri Lankan woman to run the 3,000 metres under 11 minutes as she clocked 10:44.92 seconds to create a new national mark. By the time she gave up the discipline to concentrate on 800 metres, the 3,000 metres steeplechase national record had improved by more than one minute. Incidentally, Nilani Ratnayake who missed the Tokyo Olympic qualifying mark by the thinnest of margins recently had entered the arena by that time.

Of all disciplines, Liyanarachchi’s best achievements have come in the 800 metres, 1,500 metres and the 4×400 metres relays, though she has also competed in the 5,000 metres and the 400 metres hurdles with moderate success. In fact Liyanarachchi is the current national record holder of the 1,500 metres and the 4×400 metres relay (2019 Asian Championship). Liyanarachchi hinted that she was one of the country’s top international medal prospects when she broke Dhammika Menike’s more than two decades old national record in 2016 though she did not get due recognition for it then. The record lasted just one year before fellow athlete Gayanthika Abeyratne claimed it after a close duel with her.

Liyanarachchi has South Asian Games (2016) and Asian Athletics Championship (2017) golds against her name for prowess in the 800 metres. By March this year she was the third ranked Asian in her discipline and was ranked among the top 60 athletes in the world in the ‘Road to Olympics’ rankings. That was despite missing competitions in 2020. She was injured in a road accident on the eve of the team’s departure for the South Asian Games in 2019. After spending months in rehabilitation she returned to competition later in 2020 and had earned a top ranking in Asia by March this year. However Olympics is a different story. She is not among the best in the world to have hopes of a final berth. A good performance in a semi final, a feat closer to the national record could be expected..