Sri Lanka bag Asian 400m Mixed Relay silver medal
The winning combination
Sri Lanka team clinched silver medal in the 4×400 Mixed Relay, clocking 3:15.41secs at the 25th Asian Athletics Championships being worked off in Bangkok, Thailand. Though Aruna Darshana was fourth to hand the baton to Tharushi Karunaratne, the 19-year-old completed an excellent run to finish the lap in the second spot. Kalinga Kumarage maintained the momentum in the third lap before Nadeesha Ratnayake sprinted her way to seal Sri Lanka’s fourth medal at the meet. It was a new
Sri Lankan record performance.
India finished first clocking 3:14.70secs while Japan finished third with a time of 3:15.71secs. On Thursday Ratnyake clinched the Women’s 400m gold medal — country’s first in 23 years clocking 52.61secs. Sri Lanka’s last gold in this discipline came when Damayanthi Dharsha won both the 200m and 400m events with championship records in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2000.
On day one of the championships, Gayanthika Abeyrathna won the country’s first medal (bronze) with a strong performance in the women’s 1500m, clocking 4:14.39sec. Women’s javelin thrower Nadeesha Lekamge with a performance of 60.93m also won a bronze.