Sir John Tarbat Senior Athletics Championships 

by Reemus Fernando  

Holy Cross College, Gampaha triple jumper Neha Hettiarachchi and Lyceum International Wattala high jumper Tharusha Mendis established new meet records and Samudradevi Balika, Nugegoda high jumper Sithuli Sadithya reached qualifying standards for the Asian Youth Championships as they compensated for the frustrations in track events on day two of the Sir John Tarbat Senior Athletics Championships at Diyagama.

For the second consecutive day, the officials struggled to complete the scheduled events and when this story was field from Diyagama around 6.30 pm on Wednesday,  track events were still being conducted under fading light. In a bid to save time the organizers opted to select the fastest from heats straight to the finals in hurdles events. Yet many events were held behind schedule. Athletes had to wait for hours after warming up and completing their call room procedures for their events to start.

Hettiarachchi, Mendis and Sadithya compensated for this gloom in track events with impressive field event performances.Hettiarachchi cleared a distance of 12.79 metres in the Under 20 girls’ triple jump to break Vidusha Lakshani’s 2014 meet record as she matched Asia’s fourth-best performance this year.

The day’s most stunning performance belonged to Tharusha Mendis of Lyceum. Mendis who failed to be among the top eight at the Junior Nationals in April registered a stunning 1.96 metres jump to establish a new record in the Under 16 boys’ high jump. “I struggled to clear even 1.65 metres. But today I managed to win,” Mendis told The Island. Mendis erased a record that had stood unchanged for 20 years (2002 – 1.95m by Isuru de Silva of Joseph Vaz College)     In the Under 18 age category, Samudradevi Balika, Nugegoda high jumper Sithuli Sadithya reached locally set qualifying standards for next month’s Asian Youth Championships as she cleared a height of 1.67 metres to win the Under 18 girls’ high jump. Her closest rivals cleared 1.50 metres.

Incidentally, Sadithya commenced her competition with a height of 1.55 metres. She needed just one attempt to clear both the 1.55 metres and 1.60 metres. She had to make a second attempt to clear 1.64 metres before overcoming the height of 1.67 metres in her first.   Sanuka Mihisara Gunaratne of Central College, Badulla came almost close to matching the qualifying standards for the Asian Youth Championships to be held in October as he won the Under 18 boys’ 2000 metres steeplechase in a time of 6:18.2 seconds. In the corresponding girls’ event P.S. Kumari of Ratnayake Central, Walala was the winner (8:00.9 secs). In the Under 18 boys’ triple jump, favourite, Senura Hansaka Sandeepa of Lyceum International School, Wattala had to fight hard to win as H.K. Dissanayake of Gnanodaya Central, Wariyapola cleared a distance which was just two centimetres short of the title-winning distance of 14.29 metres. P.S. Pawan of Bandaranaike College, Meerigama too cleared the 14 metres mark to win third place.