Kalinga, Lakvijaya stamp their class with remarkable feats

By Reemus Fernando

Hurdler Janindu Lakvijaya and sprinter Kalinga Kumarage were among leading athletes to leave indelible marks at the 101st National Athletics Championships which concluded with India making a clean sweep of 4×400 relay medals at the Sugathadasas Stadium on Sunday.

Lakvijaya improved his own national record twice as he clocked 13.77 second in the heats on Saturday before cruising to a 13.72 seconds finish in the men’s 110 metres hurdles final yesterday. He broke his record created in March this year.

The meet’s most impressive performance came in the men’s 400 metres on Saturday as Kalinga Kumarage stamped his class with a remarkable 45.12 seconds finish to erase the long standing meet record of Rohan Pradeep Kumara. The Asian Games medallist Rohan Pradeep’s championship record had remained unchanged for 23 years before Kumarage shattered it on Saturday.

The athlete trained by Vimukthi Zoysa is now the second fastest athlete over the 400 metres in Sri Lanka’s history behind national record holder Sugath Thilakaratne. He over took Rohan Pradeep and Prasanna Sampath Amarasekara to secure the second spot in the list, while Aruna Dharshana once again clocked his personal best 45.45 to finish second behind Kumarage. The 400 metres sprinters have now clearly established themselves as serious contenders for 4×400 metres medals at the forthcoming Asian Games. However, they could not reproduce the glorious performance they showcased at the recently held Asian Championships in the 4×400 metres relay on Sunday.

The Indian quartets who did not take part in the individual event were fresh and they beat the Asian Championship record holders to the second place in the evening. The women’s 4×400 metres quartet competing without Tharushi Karunaratne settled for the second place with a feat of 3:37.7 seconds.

Veteran runner Gayanthika Abeyratne won back to back titles in the absence of Asian Championship 800 metres record holder Tharushi Karunaratne after the latter skipped the meet to recover from a slight injury. She is understood to have abandoned plans to qualify for the World Championships to concentrate on the Asian Games where she is the top contender. Abeyratne clocked 2:02.83 seconds to win. The event witnessed the former champion and Olympian Nimali Liyanarachchi making a return to win the silver medal in a time of 2:05.45 seconds.

She was not the only former champion to make a return. While Rumeshika Ratnayake clinched the sprint double, National record holder Vidusha Lakshani competing in the National Championship after a lapse of three years regained the women’s triple jump title on Saturday as she cleared 13.43 metres. Asian Championship participant Randi Cooray settled for the second place behind Vidusha with a performance of 13.41 metres.

Gayanthika Abeyratne won both the women’s 800 metres and the 1500 metres