Nadeesha wins Asian Championship gold

by Reemus Fernando  

More than a decade of hard work paid off for Nadeesha Ramanayake as the 28-year-old from Weeraketiya earned Sri Lanka its first Asian Championship 400 metres gold in 23 years on day two of the Asian Athletics Championship in Thailand on Thursday.

The athlete trained by W.G.M. Thushara clocked her personal best, 52.61 seconds to beat her rivals in the women’s 400 metres final yesterday. Sri Lanka’s last gold in this discipline came when Damayanthi Dharsha won both the 200m and 400m events with championship records in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2000.

At the end of day one Ramanayake had established her place as the favourite as she advanced to the final as the fastest from heats in the absence of defending champion and 2019 World Champion Salwar Eid Naser. The Bahraini athlete who is returning to the track this year after serving a suspension was the women’s 400 metres winner when the Asian Championship was last held in Doha where Ramanayake finished sixth.

Mishra Ashwarya of India and Soliewa Farida of Usbekistan were the others to have produced notable times in the heats. Yet, Ramanayake continued her form at the crucial moment to clinch gold beating Farida to second place. Ashwarya who had produced a sub 53 seconds feat in the heats failed to live up to expectations.

It was a remarkable achievement for an athlete who had not climbed a victory podium at the national level in her entire youth. Incidentally, when the sprinters who had shown the potential to win at the Asian level in Dharsha’s pet event were reigning at Junior National Championships Ramanayake was just making numbers at long-distance events.

When St. Joseph’s Balika, Kegalle sprinter Kumari Ratnayake won the Under 18 girls’ 400 metres final at the Junior National Championships in 2011, Ramanayake representing Rajapaksa Central, Weeraketya made an inconspicuous debut placing sixth in the Under 18 girls’ 3,000 metres.

Later she took up the 800 metres under Thushara’s guidance and won a medal at the South Asian Junior Athletics Championships. She played second fiddle to both her contemporaries and seniors for several years before finally earning her place as a formidable 400 metres sprinter through sheer dedication and hard work. By the time she qualified for the Asian Championship this year, she had overtaken Menaka Wickramasinghe to be placed third in the list of all-time fastest athletes in the women’s 400 metres in Sri Lanka.

At the last Asian Championships in Doha, she was part of the 4×400 metres team that went on to break the national record in the relay final where the team finished just outside the podium. Now having accomplished a remarkable achievement in the individual event she will be vying for medals in both the women’s 4×400 metres and the 4×400 metres mixed relay.