“I’m hoping to win the gold medal at the next Asian championships as well as the next Commonwealth games” said a beaming Manjula Kumara Wijesekera after he bagged the High Jump gold at the Asian Athletic Championship at Guangzhou, China on Friday.

Manjula Kumara Wijesekera

The 25-year-old Athlete who is pursuing an Economics degree besides his Athletic training in America won Gold in the same event in 2005 in South Korea.

An old boy of Dickwella Vijitha Central, he has been training in America for the past few years. Speaking further to the Sunday Times Manjula Kumara added “At this moment I am very proud, but at the same time I feel very sad. I feel sad for the other talented Athletes in Sri Lanka who have not got the same opportunity that I have been afforded. If they also had this same opportunity what a lot of medals Sri Lanka could win at these International meets. My fervent hope is the authorities would make arrangements to give more opportunities for the other Athletes too”.

Manjula Kumara will return to the Island on the 17th prior to his departure to America to further his studies. The other Medal for Sri Lanka was won by the 1500M runner Chaminda Wijekoon who won Silver at the event. Wijekoon is currently training in Kenya.

Meanwhile Shehan Ambepitiya on whom Sri Lanka had pinned a lot of hope in the 100M and 200M events did not do that well but he entered the 200M final round with a run of 10.49 seconds.

Sri Lanka also relinquished their hold on the 4 x 100M relay gold when they ended up at the fifth place to end the 10th out of the 20 competing nations.

China took the first place with 18 Gold, 10 Silver and 10 Bronze medals in their kitty.

However in the overall performance Sri Lanka showed a general decline in their performances in this meet. Meanwhile it is also learned that Indika Bandara who was earlier nabbed for trying to travel abroad with a false passport was taken into custody by the Sri Lankan police when he arrived at the airport at Katunayake with the Sri Lankan Contingent.