AASL eyeing for first Commonwealth medal in 20 years
AASL has based their standard on bronze medal performances at the last three Commonwealth Games and athletes who achieve or closest to the qualifying standards stand a chance of being selected for the Games in line with quotas given by the Sri Lanka National Olympic Committee (NOC).
Only two athletes, namely high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekara (2.25m) and Javelin Thrower Waruna Lakshan (82.19m), have achieved the said qualification mark in 2017. Including them only a total of four athletes have been able to ever achieve the said mark, with Long Jumper Amila Jayasiri (8.15m) and Javelin thrower Sumedha Ranasinghe (83.03m) achieving those levels in 2016 and 2015 respectively.
1 September to February 2018 is the valid period set to achieve qualifying standards, but so far no athlete has been able to achieve the said standards in any of the local championships held during the last two months, which includes the National Championship, National Sports Festival and Army Athletics Championship.
The final trials will be held in February 2018. SL athletes will not get any international exposure in between and will have to perform on the worn out Diyagama Stadium to achieve qualification standards.
Sugathadasa said to be ready before February
Nevertheless athletes have a silver lining among these dark clouds with the contractor of the Sugathadasa Stadium confident of delivering the stadium before February, where athletes will have a new Class 1 Synthetic Track for the trials, which will boost their performances.
AASL has sent a long list of 47 athletes to the SLNOC from which to select. This is to avoid any mishaps like in 2014 where long Jumper Amila Jayasiri and 400m runner Udaya Viraj Weerasinghe missed the opportunity to make it to the team despite qualifying, as their names were not in the list.
The quota given by the SLNOC to the AASL is only 13 athletes, whereas AASL has requested to increase the quota as there are a number of talented athletes in the elite pool.
When considering the performances of athletes as at 9 September, Sri Lanka has a handful of athletes inside the top 20 Commonwealth Rankings, with Asian Championship silver medal javelin thrower Dilhani Lekamge topping the list by being ranked 7th in the Commonwealth. Javelin thrower Waruna Lakshan (9th), triple jumper Vidusha Lakshani (9th), high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekara (10th) and the SL men’s 4x400m relay team (9th) are among the top ten Commonwealth Rankings for their performances in 2017, with room for improvement by next April .
Waruna and Indunil to receive overseas training
Javelin thrower Waruna Lakshan and Asian Indoor Games 800m silver medalist Indunil Herath will be sent for overseas training later this year. Waruna will be sent to Finland for special training while Indunil will travel to Kenya for further training.
Sri Lanka has not won a Commonwealth Games medal in athletics since 1998 when 400m runner Sugath Thilakarathne (bronze) and Sriyani Kulawansa (100m hurdle-silver) won medals. In 2002 Sri Lanka had a disappointing outing with Susanthika Jayasinghe and 4x400m men’s relay team being disqualified from their events and Sri Lanka has been nowhere near medals since then.
Based on present performance AASL predict there are six athletes with medal prospects – triple jumper Vidusha Lakshani, javelin thrower Dilhani Lekamge, high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekara, a male long jumper, a male javelin thrower and a female 800m runner in Nimali Liyanarachchi or Gayanthika Abeyrathne – to finish on the podium, as they are the closest for possible medals based on their 2017 performance.
