100th National Athletics Championships

by Reemus Fernando

Long distance veteran Gayanthika Abeyratne, steeplechaser Nilani Ratnayake and long jumper Sarangi Silva produced remarkable feats which put them in contention for international medals as they excelled at the centenary National Athletics Championship at Diyagama.

The event was hampered by rain on all three days forcing Sri Lanka Athletics to postpone a number of events scheduled for Sunday to April 23. Of the completed events the women’s 800 metres, women’s 1,500 metres, women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase and the women’s long jump witnessed performances which were of medal winning standard at Asian level.

Sri Lanka Athletics had set tough selection standards to pick teams for both this year’s Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games. Abeyratne responded positively bettering the standard in one and breaking the national record in the other. She commenced the historic championship with a 4:12.41 seconds feat in the 1,500 metres before clocking 2:01.44 seconds to regain the 800 metres national record which she lost to Dilshi Kumarasinghe last year. With the 800 metres record now in her possession, Abeyratne has three national records against her name (800m, 1500m, 5000m).

The 800 metres final was a treat to watch despite the absence of national record holder Kumarasinghe as a fine mixture of youth athletes and veterans propelled the race pace to record breaking standards. Olympian Nimali Liyanarachchi joined fellow veteran Abeyratne to set the pace and emerging athletes Tharushi Karunaratne, N.A. Kumari and Shanika Lakshani followed them in the fray. Abeyratne led from the start to break the record established in 2021. Liyanarachchi was given a scare by young Karunaratne who shared the second and third places in a photo finish. Karunaratne who had already reached qualifying standards for this year’s World Junior Championships erased the National Junior record held by her senior training partner Kumarasinghe as she clocked 2:04.40 seconds.

Nilani Ratnayake, who missed Olympics participation after being the leading candidate to win the ticket for Tokyo for a better part of the year (due to lack of top grade competitions), produced a new steeplechase national record as she obliterated her previous record with a 9:40.24 seconds finish. She bettered the qualifying standards by some three seconds.

Less than a month after established a new national record in the long jump, Sarangi Silva cleared 6.52 metres to write her name against the championship record as well. It was the second time that Sarangi produced a performance better than the qualifying standard set for the Asian Games.

In the women’s pole vault, Sachini Kaushalya improved her won national record by one centimeter when she cleared the 3.71 metres mark.

While women’s events witnessed as many as three athletes producing locally set qualifying standards for the Asian Games, several men’s events where athletes were anticipating top performances were postponed to April 23 after the entire afternoon session was washed off by rain.

The men’s javelin throw and the men’s 400 metres were among such events.

The men’s long jump which was considered as a potential event for athletes to reach standards for the Asian Games had a feat of 7.69 metres achieved by Janaka Prasad as the beat performance. The qualifying standard set for the Asian Games is 8.05 metres.