Tharushi Karunaratne-Gayanthika Abeyratne-Aruna Dharshana
The 101st National Athletic senior Championship will see several athletes from Maldives and India competing in this three day event which will commence today at Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo at 7.30 a.m.The closing ceremony will br on July 30.
The first event of the meet 10,000m.women’s final will start today 7.30 a.m. This is the last tournament of the Sri Lanka Athletic calender and 756 athletes including Elite National and youth poolists will compete in this major event.
The President of the Sri Lanka Athletic Major General Palitha Fernando said 537 men and 219 women will compete this event including 16 athletes selected for the Hangzhou Asian Games.
In fact this National will be the last chance to qualify for the IAAF world athletic championship and SLA have sent a team of 29 athletes including the 4x400m men’ relay team to take part in the Sri Lanka Athletics National this year.
Yupun Abeykoon (100m) and 4x400m men’ s relay team have already qualified to represent Sri Lanka at th forthcoming World Athletic championship which is scheduled to be held in Budapest ,Hungary from August 19-27.
Meanwhile middle distance runners Gayanthika Abeyratne (800m, 1500m) Tharushi Karunaratne ( 400m, 800m), Nadeesha Ramanayaka (400m), Kalinga Kumarage and Aruna Dharshana (400m) ,Sarangi Silva (long jump) are the key attraction of this National championship and all of them are fighting to qualify for the world Athletic championship which is their last chance.
Sri Lanka Athletic (SLA) officials are keen to conduct this National at Sugathadasa Stadium as most of the local meets earlier conducted at Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Diyagama.
Gayanthika Abeyratne, Tharushi Karunaratne and Nadeesha Ramanayaka won individual medals at recently concluded Asian Athletic championship and 4x 400 m men and women relay team and 400m mixed relay team also won medals at this Asian Athletic championship.