400m runner Kumarage joins athlete’s elite group
Kalinga Kumarage - a star is born - Pic by Priyantha Wickramaarachchi
Kalinga Kumarage cruised to 400m title with a personal best time of 46.08secs at the final day of the first Selection Trial concluded at the newly laid Sugathadasa Stadium track on Saturday.
The 25-year-old sprinter from Sri Lanka Army blazed the track with a near-perfect run as he maintained a brisk speed from start to end to rob the title from favourite HM Dilip Ruwan. Ruwan however bettered his personal best of 46.41 secs, clocking 46.39 secs to finish second. MGA Premakumara finished third with a time of 47.16secs.
Kumarage’s performance in fact is the fastest time in recent history in the men’s 400m dash–an event Sri Lanka has dominated at Asian level in late 20th and early 21st century.
Sugath Thilakaratne with a magnificent personal best of 44.61 is the only Sri Lankan to run sub 45 seconds twice in his illustrious career while Rohan Pradeep Kumara, a contemporary of Thilakaratne recorded a personal best of 45.25 seconds– next best performer in Sri Lankan athletics history. Prasanna Amarasekera with a personal best of 45.47 has the third best time for the event while Kalinga now becomes the fourth fastest in the event.
Meanwhile in the women’s 400m dash Upamali Ratnakumari raced to victory with a comfortable lead clocking 53.31 secs–a new personal best performance eclipsing her previous best of 53.44secs. Nadeesha Ramanayake too improved on her personal best performance finishing in distant second with a time of 54.18secs. Her previous best was 55.03.
KS Jayasinghe finished third clocking 55.99secs.
With Vinoj Suranjaya who established a new Sri Lanka record clocking 22.68secs in the men’s 200m dash skipping the 100m dash Himasha Eshan recorded a time of 10.53secs to win the title followed by DK Wijeratne (10.57secs) and KL Wickremasinghe (10.65secs) in second and third places respectively. Sugath Thilakaratne held the record for the 200m dash with a time of 20.84secs.
WVL Sugandi who won the women’s heptathlon 4787 points, produced a gusty performance to annex the women’s 100m title with a time of 11.98secs. Lakshika Vidanaduruge finished seconds with a time of 12.25secs, followed by MASS Jayathilaka in third place with a time of 12.32secs.
Another event that caught the attention was the men’s Javelin Throw where the top three athletes cleared the 70metre mark with ease. Sumedha Ranasinghe cleared 77m to win the title while DS Ranasinghe and PAP Lakmal cleared 72.08m and 71.27m respectively.
The final selection trial for Asian Games will be held on May 12.