Kalinga anchors Sri Lanka to gold medal at Asian Relay

by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka men’s 4×400 metres team anchored by experienced campaigner Kalinga Kumarage won the gold medal as the country concluded the first ever Asian Relay event with two medals in Honkong on Tuesday.

The event telecast live on social media platforms saw teams competing in the final day events in rain. That hindered the team’s chances of producing a performance worthy of an Olympic berth.

The team were given a strong start by Aruna Dharshana before Pasindu Kodikara ran neck to neck with his Indian counterpart. Former Holy Cross College, Kalutara athlete Dinuka Deshan then ran an impressive third lap before Kumarage took the batten to fight for gold in the anchor leg.

Kumarage overtook his indian counterpart in the home stretch to stop the clock in 3:04.48 seconds. India finished second in a time of 3:05.76 seconds, while Vietnam finished in 3:07.37 seconds to secure a podium finish ahead of Qatar.

Sri Lanka won the gold medal in the men’s 4×400 metres relay.

Sri Lanka needed a performance better than 2:59.12 seconds to have realistic hopes of reaching the best 16 in the world to book an Olympic berth in the men’s 4×400 metres.

India had already punched their ticket to Olympics in this event when they secured the 14th ranking position with their performance at the World Relays in the Bahamas.

On day one of the event on Monday the 4×400 mixed relay team won the silver medal.

In the other events held yesterday Sri Lanka Sri Lanka teams missed the podium by slender margins.

The women’s 4×400 metres team finished fourth in a time of 3:36.56, while Vietnam, India and Japan shared the top three positions respectively.

Sri Lanka’s men’s and women’s 4×100 metres teams finished in the fourth and fifth place respectively.