Sumedha ready to take the Olympic challenge
Sumedha Ranasinghe, is the first men’s Javelin thrower from our country to participate in the Olympic Games, since Sri Lanka competed for the first time in 1948. The first women’s Javelin thrower to represent Sri Lanka in Olympics was Nadeeka Lakmali who did so at the Beijing Olympics 2008. Sumedha came up with his thoughts, on his selection to participate in the upcoming Rio Olympics which commences from August 5th. “My target is to qualify for the final round and attempt to win a medal for the country. The Olympic qualification round will start on August 17th and 16 Javelin throwers with the best distance will be selected for the final round.
If I get into the final round surely I will bag a medal.” Sumedha (Aged 25), qualified for the Olympics after throwing the Javelin with a personal best distance of 83.04 metres, at 12th South Asian Games (SAG) final trials held at Diyagama Stadium on December 3rd last year. Sumedha, had his basic education at Kobbewela Vidyalaya and then finished his education from Kegalu Maha Vidyalaya. He is from a family of four siblings and he is the youngest. His father is a Clerk at Mahaweli Authority. Presently he is a 3rd year student at University of Sri Jayawardenapura and specialises in Sport Science and Management. He represents Sri Lanka Air Force in sporting activities.
Sumedha’s previous coach in Javelin throwing was Lalith Liyanage. The present coach is Pradeep Nishantha. His improvement in Javelin throwing is, 61.31 metres in 2010, 63.68 metres in 2011, 66.94 metres in 2012, 66.65 metres in 2013, 72.74 metres in 2014 , 83.04 metres in 2015 and finally 80.25 metres at SAG in 2016. At the recent SAG held in India , he lost to Neeraj Chopra who won the Gold medal with a clearing distance of 82.23 metres and Sumedha ended up with a clearing of 80.25 metres to finish with the Silver. As per the International Association of Athletics Federations ( IAAF ), in the Javelin Men’s rankings, Sumedha is placed first from South Asia and placed 3rd from Asia in the year 2015.
Jan Zelezny (Czech Republic World Record Holder in Javelin Throw
But in the World rankings in the same year he was placed 29th. Again this year during the last seven months he has dropped his rankings to 58th. Sumedha further added. “I did not receive any international exposure after the recent SAG. Though I requested from the Sri Lanka Athletic Association (SLAA), to send me to compete in international competitions, they failed to do so. Then I made a personal request to Prema Pinnawela, the former secretary of SLAA . He came up with a very positive response. He called Chinese athletic officials.Then myself and High jumper Manjula Kumara had a training period for 15 days in China.
Though we went for training there was no much reception from the Chinese officials and we were not happy about the training we received. For this short tour, the requested money was provided by the Ministry of Sports. Out of the three athletes who got qualified for Rio, the two marathon runners got qualified from overseas athletic meets. But I was the only athlete who got qualified by competing in local trials. The SLAA should have sent the three athletes, myxxxxself and the two marathon runners to compete in overseas athletic meets or training to enhance our performance but they never thought about it.
The SLAA’s support for the Olympic qualified three athletes was zero and they never had a long term goal for Olympics. The top officials of SLAA , focus on Olympics with two or three months before the games, which is really not a successful plan. The SLAA planned to send us for training in Asian countries. But by training Asia will not bore results and they should have sent us for training in Europe. Any way now I am training under the watchful eyes of present coach Pradeep.” The Olympic Javelin record is held by Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway, with a clearence of 90.57 meters at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The World Javelin record is held by Jan Zelezny of Czech Republic with a clearence of 98.48 meters at Jena in year 1996.
The Asian Javelin record is held by China’s Zhao Qinggang with a clearence of 89.15 meters in Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea in 2014. Finally the SAG record is held by Neeraj Chopra of India with a clearance of 82.23 meters this year. Since 1922, Javelin event was included in Sri Lanka’s National championships. The inaugural winner was B.E.Weerasinghe with a throw of 35.06 meters. Then Samuel Joseph, was the winner of Javelin throwing, in the National championships for the longest period, in history from 1970 to 1988. His personal best throw was 68.36 meters in 1972.
