Yupun renews South Asian 100m Record with 10.06 sec

Just three days after his South Asian record in the 200m, Olympian Sprinter Yupun Abeykoon once again dazzled in Germany when he clocked a sizzling 10.06 seconds (running against -0.2 wind), to break his own South Asian and Sri Lanka 100m record.

The 27-year-old set the record at the International Athletics Meeting Anhalt 2022 Championship held in Dessau, Germany, which is a World Athletics Continental Tour-Bronze label competition.

Abeykoon beat African record holder and fastest man in 2022, Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala, who finished second in 10.14 seconds at the Paul Greifzu Stadium on Wednesday night.

The previous South Asian record was set by Abeykoon last year with a time of 10.15 seconds, while he clocked wind aided 10.09 seconds at this same meet last year, which was a best by any South Asian Athlete under any condition, until he ran wind aided 10.04 seconds last week in Italy.

All this is on the back of establishing the 200m South Asia record, where he clocked 20.37 seconds in the XII Castiglione International Meeting in Italy three days ago.

Abeykoon is just 0.01 seconds behind making it to the World Championship in Eugene, USA later this year as a direct qualifier, while his recent performance will surely see him being included in the World Ranking quota for the 100m. At the moment, without his 10.06 performance, Abeykoon is ranked 58th in the Road to Oregon ranking and 65th in the world, which will see a significant jump after his latest exploit comes into play.

Meanwhile, raising eyebrows of many, despite being the only Sri Lankan male athlete to achieve qualification for the Tokyo Olympics, Yupun Abeykoon’s name was not included in the IOC Solidarity Scholarship Programme from Sri Lanka. Despite rising to the top of the world ranking, Abeykoon still finds it financially difficult to manage his expenses as he gets little help from the country, without which he will find it tough to rise to the next level.