Sri Lankan athletes are generally known for making history with new records. For instance, Susanthika Jayasinghe won the Silver medal in Women’s 100 metres at the Sydney Olympics in 1998, when no one ever thought that she would even come to the final round of it.
Athletes such as Damayanthi Darsha, Sriyani Kulawansha and Sugath Thilakarathne also made local and Asian records out of nowhere. Now another Sri Lankan athlete is able to follow that path. He is Yupun Abeykoon, and he has become the first ever South Asian to break the 10-second barrier by a time of 9.96 secs in the 100 metres heat. He set this record at the Resisprint International Chaux-de-Fonds 2022 held in Switzerland on July 03.
Potential
With this, he also broke his own record time of 10.06 secs that he set late May 25 at the Paul-Greifzu-Stadion, Dessau in Germany. While Yupun Abeykoon won the event in the heat, Cuban sprinter Reynier Mena finished second in 9.99 secs, and Michael Zeze Meba clocked 10.00 secs in third place. When Yupun becave the first athlete from South Asia to run below 10 secs, Sri Lanka also automatically became the 32nd country with a sub-10 sprinter, and Yupun is the 167th member of the sub-10 club.
When Yupun Abeykoon recorded a time of 9.96 secs in the final of the heat, earlier in the day, he finished first in it with a time of 10.11s. Thereafter, he advanced reducing it by 0.15 secs which is remarkable. It is also significant to highlight that in the Stockholm Diamond League just two days before the record breaking day (1st July), the sprinter had a disappointing start. He finished the heat with a time of 10.21secs obtaining 4th place. But, in subsequent heats, he showed his potential to cross the 10-second barrier with timings of 10.04s in Savona, 10.06s in Anhalt and 10.08s in Ostrava.
Asian record holder in 150m
Yupun Abeykoon is an athlete who is excellent not only in 100 metres, but also in 150 metres and 200 metres heat. At the 12th Castiglione International Meeting in Grosseto, Italy, on May 22, this year the sprinter shattered the existing South Asian and Sri Lanka records in the 200 metres event clocking a time of 20.37 seconds. In it, he broke the previous record of 20.68 seconds set by Vinoj Suranjaya de Silva in 2018 and the South Asian record of 20.52 seconds set by India’s Amlan Borgohain just last April.
That month, he also set a new Asian record in the 150 metres Men’s event where he clocked a time of 15.16 secs to finish first place.
In the process, he surpassed the existing Asian record of 15.35 secs set by Japan’s Yoshihide Kiryu in 2017.
In this way, he is now ready to compete in the Men’s 100m at the World Athletic Championships which is set to begin on the 15th of July, followed by the Commonwealth Games (Athletics events will begin in August).
President’s tweet
Many Sri Lankan sporting stars and public figures, including (then) President Gotabaya Rajapaksa congratulated Yupun on his great achievement in the 100m heat. Following is President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s tweet:
“Congratulations to Yupun Abeykoon for becoming the 1st South Asian athlete to run 100m under 10 sec at Résisprint International 2022 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, #Switzerland.
— Gotabaya Rajapaksa (@GotabayaR) July 3, 2022”
Life facts
Mudiyansalage Yupun Abeykoon was born on December 31, 1994 in Pannala. He is also known as Yupun Priyadarshana. He is an Italian-based Sri Lankan track and field athlete and a national record holder in men’s 100m and in men’s indoor 60m.
How has he become an Italian based Sri Lankan athlete? He was, in fact, attached to the Electronic and Mechanical Engineering Regiment of the Sri Lanka Army and always represented Army Sports Club at every available opportunity. However, in 2015, he received a scholarship to Italy. Since then he has been residing in Italy.
Yupun had his primary education at Pannala National School. He pursued his interest in track and field events while studying there.
At the age of 16, he moved to St. Joseph Vaz College, Wennepuwa with the recommendation of his personal coach.
According to Wikipedia, he represented Sri Lanka at the 2013 South Asian Junior Athletics Championships in Ranchi.
In 2015, he competed in Military World Games representing Sri Lanka and took the bronze medal in the men’s 4×100m relay event. He also represented Sri Lanka at the 2019 South Asian Games and claimed the gold medal in the men’s 4 × 100 m relay event setting a new national and South Asian Games record.
There his teammates were Chanuka Sandeepa, Himasha Eashan and Vinoj Suranjaya.
On 8 September 2020, he shattered the South Asian record as well as national record held by fellow compatriot Himasha Eashan in men’s 100m event with a timing of 10.16 secs during an athletic competition held in Dessau, Germany.
He surpassed the previous best of 10.22 by Eashan.
He also earned the nickname “South Asia’s fastest man” after breaking the South Asian record in the men’s 100m event.
In June 2021, he reached his career best world ranking of 48 following a fourth place finish in the men’s 100 event at the Golden Gala as part of the 2021 Diamond League Meet at Florence (Florence Diamond League).
He also became the first Sri Lankan to compete at the Diamond League. In the same month he also qualified to represent Sri Lanka at the 2020 Summer Olympics which was also his maiden Olympic appearance and competed in the men’s 100m event.
He also became the first Sri Lankan to obtain direct qualification for the 100m event at the 2020 Summer Olympics after 25 years since Chintaka de Zoysa’s direct qualification at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
He was also the only Sri Lankan male track and field athlete to compete at the Tokyo Olympics. On 31 July 2021, he completed his 100m race with a timing of 10.32 seconds in the Tokyo Olympics and was ranked sixth in the heat event and thus failed to qualify for the next round.
Success without support from sports officials
When considering these facts, it is not difficult to figure out that Yupun Abeykoon is not an overnight sensation. Definitely, he has a long history behind his success, and first and foremost, he is a hard worker with a strong mindset. Like Susanthika Jayasinghe, he is also rooted in a village environment, which is instrumental in success for an athlete.
However, after setting the Asian record with 9.96 secs in Switzerland, Yupun, through a video clip, revealed that he didn’t get any support from Sri Lankan sports officials to achieve his goal, he spoke about them in disgust.
This should be seriously taken into account by our sports officials because without support from the sports authority we can achieve none in the international sports arena.
