by Reemus Fernando  

Asian Junior Athletics Championship hopeful Malith Yasiru delivered a fitting climax to the 63rd Junior National Athletics Championship as he produced a record-breaking feat in the Under 20 boys’ triple jump to claim the award for the most outstanding performance of the meet on the final day at Diyagama.

The Kahawatta Central athlete trained by former national triple jump champion Nihal Wickramasinghe cleared a distance of 15.89 metres in his very first attempt to break the Under 20 Boys triple jump meet record held by current national record holder Shreshan Dananjaya. Dananjaya had cleared 15.78 metres to set the record in 2016.

Yasiru has made steady improvement during the last three months. He had a jump of 15.43 metres at the first selection trial held in March before reaching the qualifying standard for the Asian Junior Championships with an effort of 15.58 metres in April.

Yesterday, Yasiru justified his selection with jumps of 15.89 (+1.15), 15.83 (+3.0) and 15.49 metres. He stopped after three jumps. “I asked him to stop as he is getting ready for the Asian Junior Championships,” Wickramasinghe who is also the Physical Training Instructor of Kahawatta Central told The Island on the sidelines of the event.

Incidentally, Yasiru is the first athlete from Kahawatta Central to be selected to represent Sri Lanka in athletics. However, despite the news of his selection going public, the athlete is yet to receive the support of the people of Kahawatta, a place famous for its gems and wealth.

Kahawatta Central started producing medal-winning athletes after Wickramsinghe joined the school but the track and field training project steered by a team of four inclusive of Wickramasinghe, Buddhi Dammi, Dilani Galappaththi and Pasindu Rajapaksa has not summoned the public support it richly deserves.

“School Principal Athula Kumara Rathnayake has been a source of strength. But for an athletics project like ours to run properly there should be public support. I see the generous people of Kahawatta offering tens of thousands of rupees as prize money at softball cricket matches at Kahawatta. If such generosity could be shown to a successful project like ours as well that will be a real boost for athletes like Yasiru,” said Wickramsinghe.

Yasiru was not the only athlete to break records on the final day as Vimalathas Nitharshan of Hartley College, Jaffna (35.19m) in the Under 18 boys’ hammer throw, sprinter Dananjana Fernando of Lyceum International School, Wattala in the Under 16 girls’ 100 metres (12.58 secs) and D.R. Madushan of Sri Lanka Army in the Under 23 men’s 400 metres (47.06) created new meet records.