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Here are the star athletes representing Sri Lanka:

Women’s 400m: Nadeesha Ramanayake – 5:45 PM UAE Time / 7:15 PM SL Time.
Men’s 100m: Yupun Abeykoon – 6:20 PM UAE Time / 7:50 PM SL Time.
Women’s 800m: Tharushi Karunaratne and Gayanthika Abeyratne – 7:30 PM UAE Time / 9:00 PM SL Time.

To all Sri Lankans residing in Dubai, come out and support our talented athletes as they strive for glory! Let’s cheer them on and celebrate their remarkable achievements on the international stage.

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Sri Lanka will not be able to field their formidable men’s 4×400 metres relay quartet inclusive of the two fastest men in Asia in the 400 metres this season at the upcoming World Relays in Bahamas due to visa issues. The team inclusive of Aruna Dharshana, who has clocked the fastest time in Asia (45.30 secs) so far this year and Kalinga Kumarage (45.35 secs, second fastest time in Asia) are currently ranked 16th in the world in the men’s 4×400 metres relay by vertue of their record breaking feat at the Asian Athletics Championship last year. Sri Lanka Athletics was expecting to field this team for the World Relays 2024 to be held in Bahamas from May 4-5.

Sri Lanka’s men’s 4×400 metres team (Asian Games medallists and Asian Championship record holders) will not be able to compete at the weekend’s World Relays in Bahamas due to visa issues.

The competition holds extra significance, as it is the main qualifying event for relay events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

However with the US embassy in Colombo not granting visa interviews for the transit visas untill late May the team will not be able to compete at the World Athletics event in the Bahamas, where 14 out of the final 16 men’s 4×400 metres teams for the Paris Olympics will be selected.

Yesterday, Sri Lanka’s track and field governing body informed the members of the relay team that they will not be able to take wings to Bahamas due to visa issues.

“No sooner we received the invitation for the World Relays (on April 8, 2024) from World Athletics, we applied for transit visas. But the embassy has provided appointments for interviews late in May. The Sports Minister too intervened but the embassy has not changed its stance,” a senior official of Sri Lanka Athletics said in reply to The Island quarries yesterday.

World Athletics had listed Sri Lanka among 32 men’s teams for the 4×400 metres relay starting on May 4 but had not intervened to solve visa issues.

Sri Lanka had not fielded a team for the World Relays since its inception in 2014 but the sports governing body decided to field teams this time as it provides a valuable opportunity to qualify for the Olympics Games.

The country’s men’s 4×400 metres, women’s 4×400 metres and the 4×400 metres mixed relay teams were ranked among the top 25 teams in the world after their impressive performances at both the Asian Athletics Championships and the Asian Games last year.

With the huge costs involved in air tickets and visas, Sri lanka Athletics decided to field only the men’s 4×400 metres team which is the closest to achieving qualifying standards.

The missed opportunity will be a huge blow for the Olympic aspirations of Aruna Dharshana and Kalinga Kumarage, the two fastest 400 metres runners in Asia this season. They had forgone other competition opportunities to concentrate on the World Relays.

Sri Lanka has several athletes who are close to achieving qualifying standards for Olympics. Of them Italy based sprinter Yupun Abeykoon, Asian Games medallist Tharushi Karunaratne, top ranked middle distance runner Gayanthika Abeyratne and Asian Championship medallist Nadeesha Ramanayake are expected to compete at the Dubai Grand Prix later this week.

by Reemus Fernando – Island.lk

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Sweden’s Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis opened his outdoor season in stunning fashion on Saturday(20) as he bettered his own pole vault world record (6.23m) at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting.

Duplantis cleared 6.24 metres at his first attempt to improve by 1cm his previous best set in Eugene last year.

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The World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal has dismissed the charges brought by the AIU against Salwa Eid Naser (BRN) for alleged Whereabouts failures.

The AIU had charged the athlete with four alleged Whereabouts failures that included a Filing Failure (16 March 2019 effective 01 January 2019) and three Missed Tests (12 March 2019, 12 April 2019 and 24 January 2020) occurring in the period 01 January 2019 to 24 January 2020.

In making its decision, the Tribunal did not confirm the alleged Missed Test against the athlete from April 2019. Therefore the other three confirmed Whereabouts failures did not occur within the 12-month period required to prove an anti-doping rule violation under Article 2.4 of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules.

The AIU has the right to appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 30 days and will consider the reasons for decision before determining whether to appeal.

The decision can be read here

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Sri Lanka and South Asian record holder of the women’s Marathon, Hiruni Keshara Wijayaratne, made yet another unusually long journey to Gdynia Poland on Wednesday to compete in the World Athletics Half Marathon Championship 2020 to be held on Saturday 17^th.

Unlike previous trips where she traveled alone to compete for Sri Lanka, this time she was accompanied by her husband Luis Orta. And to make trip even more special, while Hiruni will represent the island nation of Sri Lanka, Luis will be representing his home country Venezuela during the same event.

Both Hiruni and Luis hold National records in the Half Marathon in their respective countries. They live in Colorado USA and train together each single day with the goal of raising the flags of their respective countries high during international events.

“This is our second time competing at a world event together. First time was the London World Championship 2017 when we both ran the marathon. It’s nice to have a partner with the same goals and training demands. Luis is the one who actually encouraged me to focus on the world half marathon event as it is the best and most certain opportunity this crazy year,” said Hiruni, replying to a query from Ceylon Today during their 17-hour journey from Colorado to Gdynia through Chicago and Denmark.

Another famous athletics couple, the Uibos, Olympic Gold medalist female 400m runner Shaunae Miller-Uibo and her Decathlete husband Maicel Uibo, made headlines last year when the duo represented Bahamas and Estonia at the World Championship and won silver medals in their respective events, a feat which will take Hiruni and Luis over the moon. But dominance by African runners in these distance events has already made it an extremely tough competition, especially when it comes to a world event.

The distance running couple first met at the University of Kentucky, where both of them were part of University athletic team. Later they completed their Bachelors and Masters degrees at the same university and tied the knot in 2015. The duo then moved to Boulder, Colorado, which has an altitude of over 1600m from sea level which helped them to continue high altitude training everyday while being in the comfort of their home.

The couple has had a fair share of success during their career. 30-year-old Hiruni now holds four main Sri Lanka National records – 10000m, 5000m, Marathon and Half Marathon – while also having won the South Asian Gold medal in the marathon last year, marking the first time in history Sri Lanka won the women’s marathon Gold medal at the SAG. Hiruni also represented Sri Lanka at the 2017 World Championship, 2019 World Championship and 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Marathon, and also ran the 10000m during the 2018 Asian Games. During 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast Australia she was the only one from the Asian continent to finish the women’s marathon. Her half marathon personal best of 1 hour 14 minutes 28 seconds came in January 2019 in Houston, Texas.

Luis has represented Venezuela at the 2016 Rio Olympics Games in the Marathon, a feat Hiruni just missed out since she ran the qualification time outside the qualification window for the Games. Luis also represented Venezuela in the 2014 and 2018 World Half Marathon Championship where he clocked 1 hour 03 minutes 09 seconds in Spain to set the Venezuela National record during the last World Half Marathon in 2018.

With a personal best of 2 hours 16.30 seconds, Luis has also competed at major city marathons such as Berlin Marathon 2018 and Dusseldorf Marathon 2018. Both of them were in Sri Lanka in 2017 to run a half marathon during the Colombo Marathon 2017.

“Our training is a little different. I actually run more KMs per week than him, but it’s mostly the same type of training,” said Hiruni.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing athletes to be indoors for days, the couple was able to keep their fitness levels high with home training sessions, where they made a series of YouTube videos with their home workouts. Hiruni showed she is ready for business two months ago when she set a new National record in the 5000m running with marathon shoes on the track clocking 16 minutes 17. 51 seconds.

The World Half Marathon 2020 will start at 11.00 a.m. local time in Poland, and Sri Lankans can watch the race from 2.30 p.m. local time on Saturday. 250 runners from 50 countries will compete for glory.

The event was rescheduled from its original date in March and the course has also been adapted to ensure potential risks are kept to a minimum, as now the 21km race will be held in a five km loop around the Gdynia city.

Winners of the event (Men and Women) will walk away with USD 30,000, with second and third placed athletes set to receive 15,000 and 10,000. 4^th, 5^th and 6^th placed athletes will receive USD 7,000, 5,000 and 3,000 respectively. The winning team will receive USD 15,000. USD 50,000 bonuses awaits for athletes who sets world record. This is the only World Athletics series event this year.

Pic Credit – Mountain Techne 

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Lamine Diack, once one of the most powerful people in athletics, was convicted in France on Wednesday of running a clique that covered up Russian doping in return for bribes worth millions of dollars and sentenced to spend at least two years in jail.

The 87-year-old former head of world athletics’ governing body was found guilty of taking kickbacks from athletes in return for concealing positive drug tests, which enabled them to continue competing, including at the 2012 London Olympics.

The court had heard how Diack solicited bribes totalling 3.45 million euros ($4.1 million) and paid off other officials at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to aid with the cover up.

He was also guilty of accepting Russian money to help finance Macky Sall’s 2012 presidential campaign in Senegal, Diack’s home country, the court ruled.

The former long-jumper’s actions had “undermined the values of athletics and the fight against doping”, the presiding judge said.

The court handed Diack a four-year prison sentence, two years of which are suspended and a fine of 500,000 euros. It also ordered him to pay 5 million euros in damages to World Athletics (formerly IAAF) together with his son and co-accused, Papa Massata Diack.

Lamine Diack’s lawyers said he was a scapegoat “sacrificed in the name of political correctness”, adding they would appeal the judgment which was unfair and inhumane.

He will remain under house arrest pending the appeal, which could last months.

WIDENING GRAFT PROBE

Diack led the IAAF from 1999 to 2015. In his testimony, he acknowledged slowing the handling of Russian doping cases between 2011-2013 to save a sponsorship deal with a Russian bank and avoid public scandal. But he denied the corruption allegations.

At the heart of the corruption scam alongside Diack was his son, Papa Massata.

Papa Massata, who fled France to Senegal after the French investigation began and was tried in absentia, was sentenced to five years in jail and hit with a 1 million euro fine.

Papa Massata’s lawyers in Senegal said he was denied a fair trial and would appeal.

At the outset of the trial, his Senegal-based lawyers asked that it be postponed on the grounds that COVID-19 restrictions meant they could not travel, yet the request was refused by the French judges.

French Investigators say Papa Massata is at the centre of years-long corruption probe that now spans Europe, Asia and the Americas, and includes the awarding of the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo and the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro.

In 2017, Papa Massata branded the accusation that he was part of a large corruption racket as “the biggest lie in the history of world sport.”

Four other defendants were charged in the case: Habib Cisse, Diack’s former lawyer at the IAAF; Gabriel Dollé, who oversaw doping tests at the IAAF; former head of Russian athletics Valentin Balakhnichev, and former Russian athletics’ head coach Alexei Melnikov.

All four were found guilty of corruption offences.

Balakhnichev, who also did not attend the hearing, told Reuters he too would appeal.

“I don’t live in France,” he said. “We have our own laws in Russia that protect Russian citizens.”

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Ministry of Education is considering granting permission for schools sports associations to conduct their competitions during the third term following a number of requests made by sports associations.

A top official of the Ministry of Education said that various school sports associations affiliated to the ministry had made requests to conduct their annual competitions later this year after they were cancelled due to the covid 19 pandemic.

“We decided at a meeting held in the presence of the secretary of the ministry to grant permission for sports associations to conduct their competitions after the third term commences in November,” the official said.

“The third term will start on November 16 and the school sports associations can make requests with their plans to conduct the competitions. Then we will consider their arrangements and the readiness to conduct events adhering to social distancing guidelines before giving permissions.”

“But we will not encourage sports events during weekdays since we have to cover syllabuses which were affected by the pandemic. The sports associations will have to make arrangements to conduct the events during weekends,” he said.

However, the All Island Schools Games conducted by the Ministry of Education will not be held.

He said all sports training has to be done after school hours.

All sports action including schools sports came to a standstill in March due to the outbreak of covid 19 pandemic. The Under-19 cricket tournaments were reaching the business end when a lockdown came in to force and some Education Divisions had concluded their Divisional Sports events and were waiting for the Zonal Meets to commence.

Though schools started for some grades recently with many restrictions imposed to keep social distancing guidelines the Ministry of Education cancelled all school sports during second term.

(The Island)

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Asian Indoor Athletics Championship 2020 has been the latest sporting event to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Chinese city Wuhan.

The Asian Indoor Athletics championship 2020 was set to be held in two weeks’ time (February 12 to 13) in Hangzhou, China which is 700 km away from Wuhan, ground zero for the novel corona outbreak.  Seven of Sri Lanka’s South Asian Game’s Gold medal winners were selected to participate in the championship.

The Asian Athletics Association had come to decision on Sunday evening over emergency telephone conference.

As we reported yesterday , ‘The General Administration of Sport’, China’s government agency responsible for sports in mainland China had instructed the country’s sports associations to consider canceling upcoming events as far as till April in response to the ongoing outbreak though individual organizers yet to made official statements when it comes to several other international sporting events.

The world governing body of Athletics, ‘World Athletics’,  said they are “monitoring this situation carefully and is in close contact with the World Health Organisation .Should any of their advice affect plans for the World Indoor Championships Nanjing 2020” .

The World Indoor Athletics Championship to be held from March 13 to 15 in Nanjing China, which is 500km away from Wuhan.

So far, Olympic qualifying events of boxing and women’s football, which were due to held in February in the quarantined city of Wuhan were officially canceled. Other events such as the Chinese Super League football tournament, AFC Champion League qualifier on the January 28, and a Fifa World Cup 2022 qualifier between China and the Maldives on March 26 could also affect from the situation.

Chinese authorities have shut down 13 cities so far, which has quarantined nearly 35 million people to control the outbreak. Extreme health measures have been taken place specially with increased traveling time due to China’s Lunar new year, which falls on Sunday 25^th   The death toll has risen to 56 and infected at least  2000 as of sunday, as health authorities around the world took action to prevent a global pandemic.

The disease has now detected in Australia, Malaysia, Nepal, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, France, Nepal , United States, and Japan, where the 2020 Olympic Games will be held.

Sri Lanka athletes already suffered from a dengue epidemic last December during the South Asian Games, where seven athletes were hospitalized in Nepal, with two were treated at the intensive care unit while several others suffered from fever before and after the SAG Competitions.

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• Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei set the world record and won the 2019 Chicago Marathon on Sunday.
• Her time of 2:14:04 surpasses the mark (2:15:25) set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003.
• She finished nearly 7 minutes ahead of second place. Emmas Bates was the top American, finishing fourth in 2:25:27.

Brigid Kosgei of Kenya made history today at the Chicago Marathon, setting a world record of 2:14:04.

She smashed Paula Radcliffe’s mark of 2:15:25 from the London Marathon in 2003. Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia, who before today had a personal best of 2:24:02 from Tokyo in March, was second in 2:20:51, nearly 7 minutes behind Kosgei. Gelete Burka of Ethiopia was third in 2:20:55.

She passed the halfway mark in 1:06:59, and observers wondered if her early opening miles would be her downfall in the later stages of the race. But she ran almost perfectly even splits, clocking 1:07:05 for the second half.

With two dedicated pacers ahead of her, Kosgei went out in a torrid first 5K of 15:28, which projects to a 2:10 marathon. Her pacers slowed the tempo slightly after that, but Kosgei was still well ahead of world record pace. By 10K, she had a 32-second gap on her nearest pursuer.

Kosgei said that faster times were possible—for her and for other women.

“It’s amazing for me,” she said. “I never believed that time. But I’ve seen 2:10 is possible for a lady to run if they are sure. During training, you must focus everything.”

During her buildup to Chicago, she was focused on improving her best time (previously 2:18:20 from London where she won in April) and training for 2:15.

“Today I run 2:14:04,” she said. “I’m still focusing to reduce my time again if it’s possible, if my body could be good, I could reduce a little bit.”

When asked what she would say to people who are skeptical of her performance, given some high profile doping suspensions by Kenyan women in recent years, she distanced herself.

“About doping, me I do not know about it, those people,” she said. “It is far from me. It is different where we train. Me, I don’t know about those doping. I say each and every person can run clean. And you must work hard.”

Paula Radcliffe with new world record holder Brigid Kosgei.

The conditions were perfect for a record run, with temperatures around 40 degrees and light winds. With the two pacers ahead of her, Kosgei said she was protected from the breezes.

She made a last-minute decision to wear the same Nike shoes that Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya wore on Saturday in his event where he broke two hours for a marathon. Kenyans now own the men’s and women’s marathon world records. (Kipchoge’s official record was at Berlin last year, where he ran 2:01:39.)

“I appreciate what position I become and the record, which I break today,” she said. “My brother, Kipchoge, I was happy for him again. I hope Kenya now, they are happy. They have a woman and a man who are the record holders.”

The 25-year-old earns $100,000 for the win and $75,000 for breaking the Chicago course record, which was 2:17:18, also held by Radcliffe. 

In her second marathon, Emma Bates was the top American finisher. She finished fourth in 2:25:27, which puts her ninth on the list of fastest U.S. marathoners.

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