Yupun – only one for 1.9 billion people
Italy based sprinter Yupun Abeykoon had two amazing seasons, where he kept shattering record after a record, and is now set to achieve a feat which none of the South Asian males has achieved in history.
The South Asian record holder in the 100m is ranked 49th in the Olympic ranking and 51st in the male 100m ranking this year, and is the only South Asian male to achieve Olympic qualification for Olympics in 100m ever.
To put it into context, according to the World Bank there is a population of nearly 1.9 billion in South Asia now, which is more than 24% of the World’s population, out of which 51% or more are males, and out of that only one male was able to achieve the 100m Olympic qualification feat for the Olympics.
The 26-year-old hailing from Dankotuwa, first represented Sri Lanka at the South Asian Junior Championship in Ranchi (2013) as a triple jumper. He then gave up jumping and focused on the 100m, with little success in Sri Lanka. Yupun got help from his family to get to a training facility in Fiammegialle Sports Centre, Rome, Italy, where he started getting better by the day.
In 2016, watching Olympics on TV, Yupun promised himself that he will not just watch the next one on TV. His Personal Best at the time was 10.58 seconds, a time which was nowhere near Olympic qualification standard, but four years later he is Sri Lanka’s only male (and also entire South Asia) to actually qualify for the Olympic Games.
Trained under former Olympian Claudio Licciardello, Yupun missed several opportunities during the last four years, which included events like the Asian Championship, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, since he wasn’t really focusing on National level trials, and his training schedule clashed with Sri Lankan competition season due to winter In Italy. But all Yupun wanted was to qualify for this Olympics; hence, even when he missed out on participating at those major championship, it did not bother him.
Earlier, Yupun trained under coach Raparelli in Italy, and in Sri Lanka he trained under coaches Subadra and Dinesh Bandara when he was studying at Pannala National College, and then under Chaminda Sampath after he changed schools for his A/L (St. Joseph Vaz College Wennappuwa), until he left for Italy in 2015.
He won a Bronze medal with the 4x100m relay team at the World Military Games in 2015, and since then he only represented Sri Lanka in 2019 when he anchored the 4x100m relay team to win the Gold medal at the South Asian Games.
Yupun’s progress
2020 – 100m
29 August – Italy 10.29
01 September –Italy 10.32
08 September – Germany 10.23
08 September – Germany 10.16 (SL Record)
15 September – Switzerland 10.24
2021 – 60m
24 January – Italy 6.59 (SL record)
05 February – Germany 6.66 sec
06 February – Germany 6.65 sec
09 February – France 6.74 sec
12 February – Poland 6.66 sec
100m
13 May – Italy -10.12 (+2.2)
13 May – Italy 10.15
21 May – Germany 10.09 (+2.2)
10 June – Italy 10.16 (-0.1)
Event time – Juy 31-8.05am
