Big break for Yodasinghe and Bandara as three athletes qualify for World Indoor Championship

by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka will field three athletes including sprinter Chamod Yodasinghe and hurdler Kaveesha Bandara for next week’s World Indoor Athletics Championship which will be held in Nanjing, China.

Sprinters Chamod Yodasinghe and Kalinga Kumarage and hurdler Kaveesha Bandara are the only Sri Lankan athletes to have reached qualifying standards for the global event according to Sri Lanka Athletics.

It is the first time all three athletes are competing at a global event at senior level. While sprint veteran Kumarage has competed at major international events including the Asian Game, the Indoor World Championship is the first major international senior level event at which both Bandara and Yodasinghe are taking part.

Yodasinghe who has the 2028 Olympics as his long term goal had this year’s Asian Championship as his major goal for the year but his impressive 6.63 seconds finish in the 60 metres at last month’s National Short Track Championship has positioned him in the 36th place in the World Athletics’ Road to Nanjing rankings to be eligible for the event.

Hurdler Bandara is ranked 31st in the World Athletics’ Road to Nanjing rankings by virtue of his 7.80 seconds performance at the National Short Track Championship held in February.

Of the three athletes Kalinga Kumarage is the highest ranked Sri Lankan in the ‘Road to Nanjing rankings’. In the 400 metres Kumarage is ranked 17th for his 45.93 seconds feat achieved at a championship in Japan last year.

Sri Lanka has not been a regular participant at these championships. The country had to skip major athletics events in the recent past due to the difficulty in obtaining visas for events taking place in Europe and the USA.

With the Indoor World Championship taking place in China the three athletes will be eager to produce their best in a bid to improve their world rankings in a world championship year.