Sarangi leaps 6.29m , Aruna returns to win 400m

After a disastrous outing in last month’s Western Province Championship, Long Jumper Sarangi Silva returned to her best, leaping a personal best of 6.29m during a special trials conducted by the Army to select Sri Lanka’s, Military World Games team at the Sugathadasa stadium on Friday.

Sarangi leapt 6.12m and 6.18m prior to leaping 6.29m in the fifth attempt which is her personal best, as her previous best was 6.09m which she jumped during Sri Lanka’s Asian Championship trial.

Unfortunately there were no wind gauges in operation during the trials and the Athletics Association does not recognize the competition, and it wasn’t approved by the AASL because they were not even aware of it.

Nevertheless the performance will give the much needed boost to Sarangi and her competitors for good rivalry during the National Championship to be held from 16th to 18th August, especially after Sarangi could not register a single jump during Western Province competition last month.

Meanwhile the 2018 Asian Junior Gold medalist 400m runner Aruna Darshana returned to competition to win the 400m with a time of 47.3 seconds. Darshana pulled out from the Asian Championship trials in March due to an injury and hadn’t competed in major competitions since then.

The trials were hastily arranged for specific events and athletes did not have the time to prepare for events while some athletes opted out of the trials.