Kalinga wins Gold in Thailand

Kalinga Kumarage seal first Gold medal for Sri Lanka in the Thailand open Athletics Championship continued at Bangkok, Thailand on Wednesday(14th) .

Kumarage the 400m runner clocked modest 47.55 seconds easily sealing the Gold medal of the event where now Sri Lanka had secured a Gold and two silver medals in the championship .

Kumarage trained under renowned coaches Sunil and Badra Gunawardana clocked personal best 46 .57 seconds two years ago also in Thailand and clocked two sub 47 seconds performances during last two trials. Kumarage will be strong member of the Sri Lanka 4X400m relay team which consists of three sub 47 seconds runners with two of them had clocked below 46.5 seconds as Sri Lanka has one of the fastest four 400m runner after few years for this year’s Asian Championship.

The other two silver medals were won by Long Jumper Dhanuka Liyanapathirana and 3000m steeple chase runner Nilani Rathnayake.

Dhanuka leapt 7.73 in to headwind of -0.7 in long jump to win the silver medal in his fourth attempt which sealed him the medal on Monday. Earlier Dhanuka who trained under Cuban  coach Luis Miranda Ramirez ,leapt his personal best of 7.89m earlier this month sealing his entry for next month’s Asian Championship.

In 3000m steeple chase, the Sri Lankan record holder of the event, Nilani Rathnayake clocked 10 minutes 29.03 seconds to win the medal in extreme heat condition which mark as 35 degree Celsius. Her event held at 3.20pm in local time of Bangkok.

Nilani who trained under Sajith Jayalal , had earlier clocked time of 10:03.94 seconds in April to set Sri Lanka record of the event where event was held late in the afternoon which helped her since she did not had to run under extreme heat.

All of them will be eyeing medals in the forthcoming Asian Athletics Championship which is to held in Bhuwaneshwar ,India from 6 to 9 July.