Three athletes qualify for Olympics
View(s):Three Sri Lankan athletes Sumedha Ranasinghe (Javelin Throw), Anuradha Indrajith Cooray (Men’s Marathon) and Geethani Ratnasekera (Women’s Marathon) booked their slots to the Rio Olympics to be held in Brazil from August 5 to 21, 2016 by reaching the qualifying standards so far.
Sumedha Ranasinghe
Apart from this trio the doors are still open for the other athletes till July 11, next year to qualify themselves for the Olympics by proving their capabilities at the South Asian Games 2016. Sumedha Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka Air Force made a throw of 83.04m at the final athletic selection for South Asian Games (SAG) held at the Diyagama Mahinda Rajapaksa Sports Complex passing the IAAF Olympic qualifying distance of 83.00m. He also established a new Sri Lanka record in this event which stood at 79.62m set by Sachith Maduranga in 2013.
Anuradha Indrajith Cooray taking part in the London Marathon 2015 made his mark for qualification by clocking a time of 2:13.47secs bettering the qualifying time of 2:17.00secs. Anuradha is a resident of the United Kingdom.
Anuradha Indrajith Cooray
Geethani Ratnasekera
Geethani Ratnasekera of the Sri Lanka Army clocking a time of 2:40.07secs in the Hong Kong marathon booked her berth beating the qualifying time of 2:42.00secs for the 2016 Rio Olympics. According to unconfirmed reports the three Sri Lankans were the first to qualify from the South Asian region for this big event.
International marathon runner Indrajith Cooray will be making his third appearance at the Olympics games as he had taken part in the 2004 (Athens) and 2012 (London) games earlier. Unfortunately he missed the qualification at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Sprint queen Susanthika Jayasinghe was the only Sri Lankan athlete to take part in four consecutive Olympics in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 winning a silver medal in the 100 metres at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Susanthika led the Sri Lankan contingent at the 2004 Athens games but failed to take part due to injury. Anuradha Indrajith Cooray and Sonali Christine Merril (400m Hurdles) took part as wild cards at the last edition in Olympics.
The athletic team to represent Lanka at the South Asian Games will be selected tomorrow (Monday 7th). The selectors hope to pick a team of about 60-70 athletes for this event. Due to persistent rain during the final trials athletes failed to reach their peak but came out with appreciable performances. Apart from the Sri Lanka record set by Sumedha Ranasinghe, Isuru Sandaruwan (Sri Lanka Air Force) cleared a height of 4.91m at the Pole Vault beating his own record set in 2015 at the Thai Open Athletic Championship.
Short distance runner Himasha Eshan became the second fastest runner behind Chintaka De Soysa (10.35secs in 2000) in the history when he clocked 10.36secs in the100m event at the same trials.