by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka Athletics has made an appeal to consider providing an Olympic berth to javelin thrower Rumesh Tharanga who has the tenth longest throw in the world this season despite not reaching qualifying standards for the Paris event.

The track and field governing body has made the request from International Olympic Committee through the National Olympic Committee.

“We made a request to give Rumesh Tharanga the opportunity to participate at the Olympics as his best throw this season is ranked at the tenth position in the world. The NOC had made the appeal to IOC on our behalf,” Saman Kumara, the secretary of Sri Lanka Athletics told ‘The Island’ on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old came almost close to reaching direct Olympic qualifying standards when he cleared a championship record distance of 85.45 metres at the Asian Throwing Championship in Mokpo, South Korea last month. This new national record performance was just five centimeters short of the direct Olympic qualifying standard.

When the qualification deadline closed on June 30, only 11 athletes had cleared the direct qualifying mark around the world. Apart from those 11, 21 other throwers are selected according to ‘Road to Paris 24’ rankings.

Of the 11 athletes who have reached qualifying standards only seven had achieved it this year.

Former World Champion and Olympic medallist Julius Yego of Kenya too has cleared only 81.74 metres as his best during the qualifying period. He was ranked 30th in the ‘Road to Paris 24’ rankings last week.

Sumeda Ranasinghe who won the national championship title last week is currently ranked 62nd in the ‘Road to Paris 24’ rankings.

Tharanga was yet to enter that ranking list when he made his last appearance in a competition last week.

The former St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya athlete had the honour of finishing among the top eight when he represented the country at the World Junior Championships in Cali in 2022.