Despite breaking 16-year-old National record, Nilani’s SAG fate hangs in balance

Following a heartbreaking incident at the National Athletics Championship, determined middle distance champion Nilani Rathnayaka ran her heart out at the Army Athletics Championship to shatter the 16-year-old Sri Lanka record of the 5000m at the Sugathadasa Stadium. However, despite her record breaking run her inclusion in the South Asian Games team isn’t guaranteed since she failed to win the event at the designated SAG trial, which was the National Championship, not entirely due to her fault.

Yesterday Nilani clocked 16 minutes 17.82 seconds, more than 4 seconds better than the Sri Lanka record set by Sujeewa Nilmini Jayasena in 2003 with a time of 16:21.18 seconds.

Nilani now holds the Sri Lanka record in both 3000m steeple chase and the 5000m, with the 3000m steeple chase being her pet event. With the 3000m steeple chase event not included in the last edition (2016) South Asian Games, she opted to run the 5000m and 1500m and won Bronze medals in both events.

She has shown amazing improvement in her pet event over the last year, being a finalist in the Asian Games and finishing fourth in the Asian Championship. Despite failing to clear the final hurdle, she was praying she would be included to run her pet event at the SAG. Her prayers were answered when she heard that her pet event, the 3000m steeple chase, has been included in the South Asian Games programme and only the Hammer Throw and Pole Vault events have been scrapped from the SAG schedule.

She easily won the 3000m steeple chase at the National Championship and did not finish the 5000m event as she thought she was already included in the SAG team after winning her pet event. But events which unfolded a little later left Nilani devastated as it was only after she did not finish the 5000m that she was informed the 3000m steeple chase event wasn’t included in the SAG events list. Had she been aware of this earlier her approach towards the 5000m event would have been different, and she wouldn’t have even run the 3000m steeple chase, focusing entirely on the 5000m.

The Athletics Association (AASL) claim they informed this well in advance to all coaches at the SAG Coaches’ meeting, even though upon inquiry Ceylon Today could not find a single coach who had heard such thing.

Nevertheless Nilani’s coach Sajith Jayalal accepted that he was informed by an AASL official about two days prior to the Nationals regarding this, but by then it was too late to shift Nilani’s focus to another event. Devastated, Nilani was seen wandering around the Stadium not knowing how to cope with the fact that despite being the country’s second top seeded athlete at the moment, she is not included in the SAG team.

The 29 year old had one option – to break the existing Sri Lanka record for the 5000m and showcase her capabilities to make her case for inclusion in the SAG team, which she did in emphatic fashion here at the Stadium. Despite being the next best athlete of the event, M.N. Nandasena was more than 1 minute behind her.

According to the new SAG ruling of only one athlete per event, only the winner of the National Championship is considered for selection at the moment, and Hiruni Wijayarathne who easily won the 5000m at the Nationals, is the athlete eligible to compete in the 5000m. Hiruni is eligible to represent the country in the 5000m, 10,000m and Marathon, and there is a possibility of her choosing one or two of the three events to compete in the SAG. In such a scenario, the second placed athlete of that event at the National Championship will automatically be the one eligible to represent the country, though AASL might consider exceptional cases such as Nilani’s where an athlete has broken a national record.

In order for Nilaini to compete in the 5000m at the SAG, Hiruni has to opt out and the selectors have to consider Nilani’s performance and include her in the team instead of H.M. Nandasena, who finished second in the 5000m at the National championship, which would leave Nandasena devastated.

Nilani knows it’s a distant possibility, but a possibility which Nilani is praying for these days, especially since her coach Sajith Jayalal is keeping silent over the matter as he is the coach of both Nandasena and Nilani.

“I want the 3000m steeple chase included in the SAG. Why leave out such an Olympic event from SAG, especially with Sri Lanka favourites to win the Gold medal,” says Jayalal, who is looking for a different solution to the current dilemma.