Amazing Nimali shines with Gold medal in 800m
After 8 years of waiting Nimali Liyanarachchi finally won a Gold Medal for Sri Lanka in the 800m, while Gayanthika Abeyrathne, Sprinter Rumeshika Rathnayake and the 4x400m relay team won Silver medals at the 22nd Asian Athletics championship ended at Kalinga Stadium, Bhhuwaneswar.
Sri Lanka finished the championship with One gold and four Silver medals, which is a massive improvement from the last edition where SL just won one Bronze medal. SL finished 9th in the medals tally dominated by host India with 12 Gold medals.
Nimali and Gayanthika battled it out to the wire in the 800m final, and it looked as if the pair were battling for Gold and Silver, but Indian runner Archana Adhav obstructed the two Sri Lankan runners several times and finished first, spreading her arms. After making an official protest over the incident the judges decided to disqualify Indian runner Archana due to her obstructing the SL athletes and the results altered with Nimali winning the Gold (02:5.23 seconds) and Gayanthika getting the Silver with 02:05.27 seconds.
Nimali was beaten early in the year by Gayanthika, as well as in Asian GP, but Nimali came on top when it mattered the most as she converted her last year’s Bronze medal to Gold this year. India’s top 800m runner Tintu Luka gave up the race after the first 500m .
“I was running with an injury and very happy about this win considering my condition,” said an ecstatic Nimali.
“My coach (Sujith Abeysekara) was not originally selected for the Meet but was sent with the team after appealing to the Sports Minister, and if not for him I wouldn’t have won at least a Bronze. I am thankful to the Sports Minister and Southern Province Sports Minister for that.”
With this Gold medal Nimali has now qualified for the IAAF World Championship in London as the Asian Champion of each event gets a direct entry for the World Championship.
Earlier Rumeshika lived up to expectations early in the evening clocking 23.43 seconds to win the Silver medal just behind Kazakhstan’s Victoria Zyabkina (23.10 sec). Sri Lanka sealed a medal in a women’s sprinting event after ten years in the Asian Championship. Rumeshika who faced an unfortunate false start incident in the 100m, was determining to make up for that and she did it in style. The athlete hailing from St. Joseph’s BV Kegalle and training under AD Nandawathi was the South Asian Games champion in the 100m, and she thinks if not for that false start she could have won a medal in that event too. Earlier in the morning Rumeshika clocked a personal best 23.40 seconds in the 200m to advance to the finals.
Relay quarter of Tharusha Dhananjaya, Kalinga Kumarage, Dilip Ruwan and Ajith Premakumara too lived upto expectations as they secured the Silver medal just behind India in 03:04.80 seconds. Teenager Tharusha ran an exceptional first lap and was the first to hand over the baton to second lapper Kalinga Kumarage. Kalinga too ran a good lap running neck and neck with Indian 400m winner Mohommad Anas, but India having two under 46 400m runners was too much for the islanders, even though they did well to secure the Silver medal.
4x400m relay team has been Sri Lanka’s strong suit in Asia, but recent performances of the relay quartet had gone down as SL’s last won a 4X400m medal way back in 2013 at the Asian Championship, where they secured the Bronze medal in the Pune Asian Championship.
The only other medal came from Javelin thrower Sachith Maduranga in Asian Championship history, where Maduranga won a Silver medal before prematurely retiring from athletics due to lack of recognition and problems faced by athletes in the country.
In other events, 800m runner Indunil Herath finished fifth with 1:50.57 seconds, while Long Jumper Dhanuka Liyanapathirana finished 8th.
The only other medal was won by Dilhani Lekamge who won a Silver medal in the Javelin throw with a throw of 58.11m.
The highlight of the 22nd edition of the Asian Athletics Championship was the poor technical set up, as there were many lapses and some controversial decisions, which raised many eyebrows. Some of the decisions were unbelievable.
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