The story of South Asia’s fastest man – Yupun Abeykoon
When Yupun achieved his personal best and a Sri Lanka record
For any athlete, his or her ultimate destination would be the pinnacle of sporting stage – The Olympics. For Mudiyansalage Yupun Abeykoon popularly known as – Yupun Abeykoon – it was no different.
Having started schooling in Pannala National school, and later enrolled at St. Joseph’s Vaz, Wennappuwa, it is here, his association with athletics had started in 2004, then, ten.
Nearly a decade since at a school’s meet, he won his first set of medals with a medal tally of four golds and a solitary bronze, and followed it up in the next year too, this time, establishing a school meet record in the 100m with four golds.
Since then, Yupun, saying he is a target-oriented athlete, and his liking in the field of athletes has only soared with no decline in desire.
“Sports has become my life”, declared Yupun, having been on his first overseas tour to the next-door nation India, to run in the South Asian Junior Championship.
Born in Sri Lanka, based in Italy, his ambitions, targets and his father’s working conditions all struck together in prompting him to take off there.
Bouquets and Brickbats
He, initially and inexplicably, laughed at first when asked about handling criticism. However, later went on to say, in the early stages he was a lone man, handling all by himself. He is now fine with it, because before there was no one to share and encourage.
But when he became South Asia’s (SA) fastest man and his first run in the diamond league, he found so many people.
“Some started to blame, found more faults and criticism only mounted. I then understood, this is the form and norm and that is how you go about it,” he told the Sunday Times speaking from here at home on the eve of his 27th birthday on Thursday (30).
“Then, when I finally arrived at the stage I am now, I became the talking topics of others. Along with the brickbats, bouquets also flowed by my way”.
“Now, there are many more people trying to help and push me to go forward year-by-year, race-by-race and now I know how to handle these criticisms”.
Path preceding the Pinnacle of Sports
He disclosed, right now, it’s so difficult and competitive to compete at the Olympics, because now the qualifying standards are less than 2016 Rio. He had to follow one of the two processes. One was- direct qualification, second was- collect points and go through world rankings.
“For me, at the last-moment, I had to resort to the second option, so I participated in half-a-dozen races, gathered points, became 46th in the world and set foot in my first-ever Olympics,” he said
Tokyo 2020: A date with desire
Given the apparent significance of his maiden Olympics, he had arrived at Tokyo 2020 (held last year), 10 days in advance for acclimatising purposes.
“The athletes I had been star struck since early days were all training, working out and warming up. Yohan Blake and few other top notch names- to name a few,” he took to his Tokyo times.
During a meet in Italy last year
“My small day heroes were all warming and training. Sharing the running track and the line-up; on one hand it was a blessing; on the other- it was a golden opportunity for him. I had a big pride that I was running along with the best in the world and I too belonged to that cream of the crop club. Seeing them also instilled euphoria and ecstasy, because I have been looking up to them greatly during my growing days,” Yupun elaborated on that red-letter day on personal and patriotic grounds, when for the first-time in a quarter century, the country fielded an athlete in the Men’s 100m event. However, though, he clocked 10.32secs and crashed out from the preliminaries.
These moments were of mixed feelings- proud and everything, he said.
“Tokyo was a brand new experience. Prior to this, I had run the Diamond League and that was an unforgettable experience. Setting foot on an Olympics field itself is what any athlete craves for. World’s best experience. Only the world class athletes can be found there”.
The sport’s biggest stage had also been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet and greet the elite, exceptional and exemplary performers of the planet. Yohan Blake, Marcell Jacobs, the defending 100m Olympic champion and calls him as his close ally, and Jacob’s countrymen, Gianmarco Tamberi, the champion in high jumping – were all on show and Yupun says he had rubbed his shoulders with them.
Recalling and crediting the driving forces behind the target of Tokyo 2020, he said his coach, Claudio Liccardello, backed, pushed, planned, timed his targets and was the driving force behind the running force Yupun he is today.
Fastest man in SA- pressure or pleasure?
“It’s a pleasure,” he said immediately on the tag of – fastest man in SA. However, he sounded he was an athlete, having withstood and carried the pressure, but no longer an energy-sapping aspect.
He does not care that much now, because he now knows about the world of athletics and he knows he needs to go far away from his country and the tag of SA’s fastest he is carrying. “It’s no pressure, actually,” he reiterated.
Sri Lanka might be the country he was born-and-bred, but there are no second thoughts on continuing to live in Italy, as he feels in Italy it’s easy to train.
Highs and lows
Yupun reflected and regretted that by the time he learned about the process of the World Class athletics it was very late. That has now dealt a bit of disillusionment as he wonders he could have started these a little earlier. He believes, had he embarked three to four years before, he would have been at a better place.
While his highest point so far as for any athlete was the Olympic outing. As secondary, he listed the Diamond League, Zurich, final because not all and sundry can feature in that.
After the last year to remember, thanks to his debut games, he is now bracing for the new year with important meets on the horizon. Yupun will return to action come March in Europe itself with many of them spread across in the region, after which, he has an Asian Games duty slated for September and again the Diamond League in Rome. The other important meets would be the – The World Championships in Oregon, USA and the Commonwealth Games, Birmingham, England.