Indunil and Gayanthika into 800m Finals; Nimali burst into tears

The middle distance runner Indunil Herath was the most impressive athlete for Sri Lanka. He clocked 1 minute 47.54 seconds and finished overall third to advance to today’s final. Indunil, who trained in Kenya prior to the Games, set a new SL record of 1 minute 47.13 seconds, shattering the 25 year old SL record set by Ranjith Subasinghe in 1993.

In the morning women’s quarter miler Gayanthika Abeyrathne finished third in the 800m heats and qualified for the final. Running in Lane 3, Gayanthika clocked 2 minutes 6.31 seconds and qualified as the sixth fastest runner.

“Last time I finished in sixth place in the final. This is not my best time as I have run 2 minutes 02 seconds. I will try my best to run close to that,” said Gayanthika after the race.

Nimali burst into tears

Meanwhile, Nimali Liynarachchi who finished fourth in a time of 2 minutes 06.74 seconds and overall seventh after three heats was unfortunate to miss out from the final, which made her burst in to tears. Nimali ran in the first heat which saw Asian Games record holder Margarita Mukashewa, Bahrain hired athlete from Africa Marta Yota and Japanese athlete Ayano Shiomi competed along with her. The second heat was won by Chinese Chunyu Wang in a modest time of 2 minutes 08.99 seconds and she was fortunate to be selected for the final.

Only athletes who finished first and second in each of the three heats advanced to final automatically and the other two were selected based on their timing.

“My heat was the fastest and included an African athlete. Very sad about what happened. I won the Gold medal at the Asian Championship last year, but during the Asian Games I did not have my coach with me. I know if I had my coach with me the story would have been different,” said Nimali, whose personal best in the 800m is 2 minutes 02.57 seconds.

Nimali did not have her coach even during the Commonwealth Games, but she had requested that her coach accompany her to the Asian Games, as she was confident she would be sent for the Games based on her performance at the Asian Championship last year, where since she was the country’s only Gold medalist.