Amasha wins silver, Nimali settles for bronze

World Athletics allocates ‘Universality Place’ for Nimali

Sprinter Amasha de Silva returned a time of 11.59 seconds to clinch silver in the 100 metres and Nimali Liyanarachchi settled for bronze in the women’s 800 metres on the third day of the 60th Interstate Athletics Championship in Patiala, India on Sunday.

National champion de Silva was just 0.04 seconds shy of her personal best as she clinched silver behind Tamil Nadu’s Dhana Lakshmi. The favourite Dutee Chand, who was fighting to achieve Olympic qualifying standards finished fourth. She seemed to have suffered an injury.

Nimali Liyanarachchi who was fighting against many odds to achieve Olympic qualifying standards finished third in the women’s 800 metres final. She returned a time of 2:05.69 seconds, which was well behind the Olympic qualifying standards.

By Sunday the World Athletics had granted ‘Universality Place’ for her to represent the country at the Tokyo Olympics. However that will come to effect only if steeplechase runner Nilani Ratnayake further goes down in the ‘Road to Olympic Rankings’. Nilani who was ranked among the best 35 athletes in the world two months ago had slipped to the 45th position in that ranking by last week. Nilani has a tough ask when she competes on Tuesday to regain her lost position on the cut off day for Olympic qualification. While her rivals had better competitions to improve their rankings the Interstate Championship is the only competition she was able to attend overseas. Despite being the highest ranked athlete in the women’s category in Sri Lanka she will not receive a ‘Universality Place’ as such offers are given only to sprinters and 800 metres athletes.

Meanwhile, Kalinga Kumarage advanced to the final of the men’s 200 metres as the fastest athlete in the heats yesterday. Kumarage clocked 21.16 seconds to win the second heat. Nalu Bothu, the winner of the first heat returned a time of 21.36 seconds.

Earlier Kumarage was also the fastest in the 400 metres heats as he clocked 46.88 seconds to win the second heat. No other athlete produced sub 47 seconds.

Nadeesha Ramanayake clocked 54.65 seconds to finish second behind Poovamma Raju of Karnataka in her heat and is set to compete in today’s final.

Sri Lanka sent a team of ten athletes for the Interstate Championship on Indian Athletics Federation invitation.