Lankan marathon runners in action today in London
Hiruni Wijeratne
Sri Lanka marathon runners – Anuradha Indrajit Cooray and Hiruni Wijeratne will take part in the 16th World Athletics Championships Marathon event in London today.
The competition which commenced on Friday will continue until August 13.
Anuradha Indrajit’s men’s event will be at 10.55 am (London time). Hiruni’s event will be at 2 pm. 108 marathon runners from 54 countries will take part in the men’s marathon. In the women’s marathon 96 runners from 46 nations will face the starter.
This is Indrajit’s third World Championships marathon. Before this he took part in Helsinki and 2015 Begin marathons.
This is Hiruni’s first World Marathon Championship. Both athletes are taking part in the event after having qualified for the event.
The qualifying standard in the men’s marathon is 2 Hrs. 19.00. Last year at the South Asian Games (SAG) in India, Indrajit clocked 2 Hrs.15.38 and qualified for the event. His personal best is 2 Hrs. 13.47 which time he obtained the 2015 London Marathon in 2015. Indrajit has taken part in three Olympics. They are: 2004 Athens, 2012 London and 2016 Rio.
He is also a gold medalist at the 2004 Islamabad and 2016 Guhati, SAG marathon. He is 39 years old.
Hiruni Wijeratne is a newcomer to marathon. He has not taken part in any marathon events in Sri Lanka. She is a dual citizenship holder. Even though her home town is Colombo she has been residing in the USA since 2000. In the USA she has taken part in long distance running. She has taken part in mini-marathons and marathon in the United States. She qualified for the World Championships at the Eugene US Marathon. She clocked 2 Hrs. 43.31. The world championship qualifying standard here is 2 Hrs.
Anuradha Cooray
45.00. She is the second women athletes to represent Sri Lanka at the world event. Geetani Rajasekera is the first Sri Lankan women athlete to represent Sri Lanka — which she did at the last World championships. The world record in the men’s marathon is 2 Hrs. 02.57 secs, achieved in 2014 by Dennis Kipruto Kimetto of Kenya. The world championship record is held by Abel Kirui also of Kenya with a time of 2 Hrs. 06.53 secs.
The women’s marathon world record is 2 Hrs. 15 Mts. 25 secs held by Paula Radcliffe (GBR). She holds the world championship record as well, which is 2 Hrs. 20 Mts. 57 secs.
The other two athletes to represent Sri Lanka are: Niluka Liyanarachchi (800 M Women) and Waruna Lakshan Dayaratne (Javelin). Their events will be on August 10. Both athletes did not qualify for world standards, but Niluka Liyanarachchi was the 800m Asian Champion and got the opportunity for the World Athletics Championships.
According to World Ranking, Waruna Lakshan is in 32nd position and the IAAF decided to give him the opportunity to take part in the London event. The qualifying standard for the men’s javelin is 83.00mtrs. But Waruna’s best performance is 82.19mtrs.
The qualifying standard in the women’s 800mtrs is 2mts. 01.00secs. At the Asian Championships she finished the event in 2mts. 05.00secs.