Sri Lanka’s junior athletes will commence their World Under-20 Championship campaign when they make the country’s debut in mixed relay on day one of the event in Nairobi today.

Ananda Sastralaya Matugama sprinter Isuru Kaushalya, Wekada MV, Chilaw sprinter Dilshan Bandara, Ratnayaka Central, Walala runner Tharushi Karunaratne and Holy Cross College, Gampaha athlete Lakshima Mendis will form Sri Lanka’s mixed relay team. They will line up against, Jamaica, Czech Republic, India, Poland and Ethiopia in heat one of the 4×400 metres mixed relay, which will be the first discipline of the meet.

With only the first three finishers and the top two fastest finishers from the rest of the teams from the two heats advancing to the final Sri Lanka will have a tough ask qualifying. Nigeria, Italy, Kenya, South Africa and Ecuador are the teams competing in the other heat.

It is the first time that Sri Lanka compete in a mixed relay, the newest addition to track and field sports. The event won the global attention at the last World Championships in Doha and at the Tokyo Olympics. Sri Lanka’s senior athletes are yet to compete in a mixed relay after the Asian Relays and the Asian Athletics Championships were not held due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

Sri Lanka will bank heavily on the relay quartet to produce the best and book a final berth as there will be tougher competition in the individual events.

Lumbini College sprinter Medhani Jayamanne and Isuru Kaushalya will also compete in their individual events today.

Jayamanne will compete in the fourth heat of the women’s 100 metres while Kaushalya runs in heat two of the men’s 400 metres.

Jayamanne is drawn against sprinters from Jamaica, Bahamas, Italy, Czech Republic and Canada in her heat, with Jamaica’s Tina Clayton bringing a personal best of 11.17 seconds as the fastest of the heat. A personal best performance will be a realistic target for Jayamanne who clocked 11.85 seconds to qualify for the World event in July. Her coach, the South Asian Games medallist Umanga Surendra was hopeful that she would achieve her personal best mark in Nairobi.

Anthony Pesela of Botswana carries the fastest personal best (46.10 secs) to the men’s 400 metres second heat, while Zambia’s David Mulenga (46.14) and Nigeria’s Dubem Amene are the other serious contenders that Kaushalya has to fight against. Kaushalya has a personal best of 46.90 seconds from the last months’ selection trial. His coach Danushka Munasinghe backs him to do well in both the mixed relay and the individual event.

Dr. Dhammika Senenayake who is accompanying the team as the Covid 19 liaison officer told The Island that the athletes and the officials namely the manager Jagath Gnanasiri and coaches Umanga Surendra, Danushka Munasinghe and Sunethra Karunanayake have all returned negative results when tests were conducted for Covid 19. (RF)