Former Javelin throw National record holder and 2016 Olympian Sumedha Ranasinghe won the Javelin Throw event with a performance of 77.68m on the first day of the 102nd National Athletic Championship which started at Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium Diyagama yesterday.
Rumesh Tharanga who won the Gold with the national record at Asian Throwing Championships last week secured second place with a performance of 77.10m and Tharanga was close to Olympic standard at the last South Korean Throwing championship with 85.45m was not in his best attempt yesterday.
Ovini Chandrasekara won the shot put women’s event with a performance of 12.95m while Minoli Fernando won the women’s high jump with a leap of 1.74m. Rasara Wijesuriya clocked 35:09.35sec to win 10000m women’s final.
Meanwhile Sri Lankan middle distance athlete Asian medalist Nimali Liyanarachchi once again back to the action at the 102nd National Athletic Championship when she won the 1500m finals with 4. 24.11 seconds.
Nimali athlete from Air Force was out of the track due to injury once again took part in this meet but she was not at her best at this event yesterday.
The meet will continue today and tomorrow while over 700 athletes are taking part in this event.
Dhammika Ratnaweera
