Sri Lanka Athletics sets qualifying standards for the Asian Championship 2021

Vidusha Lakshani was the only medalist for Sri Lanka at the last Asian Championship in Doha.

by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka Athletics has set separate qualifying standards to select athletes to form a pool for the Asian Athletics Championship and to pick the team for the Asian Athletics Championship 2021.

The Asian Athletics Championship which will be held in Hangzhou, capital city of East China’s Zhejiang province will be the final opportunity for Sri Lanka’s track and field athletes to achieve qualifying standards for the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

In the event the National Championship 2020 is cancelled Sri Lanka Athletics will consider conducting the National Championship 2021 prior to the Asian Athletics Championship so that the competition-starved local athletes would obtain event exposure following a season hampered by the Covid 19 pandemic.

A senior official of Sri Lanka Athletics said that athletes are encouraged to achieve qualifying standards at the National Championship in December and at a trial which will precede the Asian Championship.

The qualifying standards for the Asian Championship have been set on the average bronze winning standard of the last three Asian Championships. However, only two athletes will be selected in the team for a single discipline.

Meanwhile a tough standard has been introduced for athletes to enter the elite pool or the supper pool.

Sri Lanka won just a solitary medal, a bronze, at the last Asian Championship when Vidusha Lakshani cleared a distance of 13.53 metres in the women’s triple jump in Doha. While the women’s 4×400 metres team inclusive of Dilshi Kumarasinghe, Nadeesha Ramanayake, Upamali Ratnakumari and Nimali Liyanarachchi established a new Sri Lanka record missing a medal by a small margin, women’s steeplechaser Nilani Ratnayake missed a medal when she stumbled at the final barrier.