Vinoj, Kalinga ,Rumeshi and Asanka to compete in Malaysia

Four National athletes will take wing to Malaysia to participate in the Malaysian Open Athletics Championship to be held from 11 to 13 May at National Stadium, Kuala Lumpur.

Team includes sprinter Vinoj Suranjaya de Silva, who recently dazzled at the new Sugathadasa Stadium synthetic track by clocking 20.68 seconds in the 200m to shatter the 20 year old National record of Sugath Thilakarathne. The sprinter will definitely be included in the Sri Lanka team for the Asian Games, but will miss the second National trials for the Asian Games to be held on 12 June.

De Silva, former South Asian Games Gold medalist, flopped at last year’s Asian Championship when he ran an unusual 200m race in the semi final. He was leading the race coming off the bend but then gave up by striding down in the last 50m. However, he came back strongly after that clocking the fastest time in Sri Lanka in both 100m and 200m.

Team also includes sprinter Rumeshika Rathnayake, the Asian Championship Silver medalist. Rumeshika, who clocked a personal best of 23.40 seconds at the Asian Championship, has not been able to repeat that performance since then, but she did run very close to that mark in the heats of the Commonwealth Games early this year where she qualified for the semi-finals. Nevertheless, she did clock her personal best in the 100m (11.51 seconds) in a competition early this year at Sydney during her training period in Australia ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

Quarter miler Kalinga Kumarage, who kept everyone on their feet a week ago with a sizzling run of 46.08 seconds, will be the third member of the team. The 25 year old Kumarage stunned 400m National Champion Dilip Ruwan in that race during the National trials and will be a member of the SL Asian Games team for both the 4x400m and 400m individual event.

The final member of the team is 400m hurdler Asanka Rathnasena, who clocked another impressive 51.57 seconds at the recently concluded senior trials. Rathnasena, hailing from Rathnapura, has been winning the 400m hurdle event since the 2016 National Sports Festival and this will be a fitting reward for all the hard work he has been putting in, though he still has some way to go before making it to the Asian Games team.

Vimukthi Perera, who is Vinoj’s present coach, will accompany the team as coach, while Badra Gunawardana was named Manager.

Sri Lanka athletes schedule