Sri Lanka’s medal hopes in athletics at the Asian Games ended yesterday in China.
Although Nadeesha Ramanayake, Kalinga Kumarage and Aruna Darshana managed to qualify for the finals of the women’s and men’s 400m events, their performance yesterday was not enough to win medals. With this, Sri Lanka lost an opportunity to win an athletics medal after 17 years.
In the Games held in Doha in 2006, Susanthika Jayasinghe won the 100m silver medal and the 200m bronze medal while the 400m relay athletes won the bronze medal.
Ramanayake, who participated in the women’s 400m finished the race in fifth place. She was unable to match her personal best, clocking 53.72 seconds yesterday. She had recorded a time of 52.67 seconds in the preliminary round competition held on Friday. The gold medal was won by Oluwakemi Mujidat of Bahrain who recorded a time of 50.66 seconds while the silver medal went to Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain (50.92 seconds) and the bronze medal to Malaysia’s Shereen Vallabouy (52.58 seconds).
Aruna Darshana, who entered the men’s 400m final, finished sixth with a time of 46.09 seconds while Kalinga Kumara finished the race in seventh place with a time of 46.22 seconds.
It was noticeable that both of them could not surpass the time recorded in the preliminary round yesterday. Kalinga recorded 45.57 seconds and Aruna 46.07 seconds in the preliminary round on Friday. Yousef Ahmed Masrahi of Saudi Arabia won the gold medal in this event with a time of 45.55 seconds. Japan’s Kentaro Sato (45.57 seconds) and Bahrain’s AliYusuf Abbas (45.65 seconds) won the silver and bronze medals respectively.
