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Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from South Korea

BUSAN, Thursday - It was a day full of emotions for Sri Lanka as Damayanthi Darsha bagged women's 400m gold medal while a hamstring injury to star sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe shattered Sri Lanka's dreams of possible two other gold medal in women's 200m and 4 x 100m relay on day 12 of the 14th Asian Games here today.

The 1998 Asian Games double gold medallist, Darsha recalled the sweet memories she had in Bangkok four years ago, when she won women's 400m gold medal, completely unchallenged. She ran a great race to clock an impressive season's best 51.13 seconds - a new Asian Games record, erasing the previous mark of 51.17 held by China's Ma Yugin in Hiroshima, 1994.

Darsha had a relatively slower reaction of 0.253 off the blocks but that did not bother her at all as she took the lead after the first 100m. She accelerated to take a three-metre lead by the half way mark. But her rivals were slowly catching up in the next 50m but Darsha took the final bend in great rhythm and accelerated on the top gear in the last 100m dash to emerge easy winner at the end. It was the best performance by Darsha in four years after a series of injury-hit meets until her morale-boosting semi-final heat until Tuesday.

Darsha became the most successful Sri Lankan ever in the Asian Games history, with three gold medals - two in Bangkok 1998 and one in here in Busan 2002. It was also Darsha's third successive medal in Asian Games of Hiroshima, Bangkok and Busan, starting from the bronze medal she won in Japan eight years ago.

Thus, Darsha has won four medals in three Asian Games, a feat no other Lankan has achieved.

"I feel great to win again, especially after overcoming the injuries I have had in last few years.

I feel extremely happy and have the same feeling as I won in Bangkok four years ago," she said after her triumph.

She criticised the schedule of the track and field competition, stating the sprinters have not given sufficient time between the short distance events.

"It is not the ideal time table. It is impossible to run the 200m and 400m finals on the same day with such a short gap. If I had the 200m final after the 400m final, I would have still won it. I have been mainly concentrating on the 400m and did not want to take the risk of running in the 200m final before that.

In any case, we had a sure gold medal there with Susanthika (Jayasinghe) and its unfortunate she could not run," Darsha said. She said she would have still beaten Indian Shah and won the 200m gold in the absence of Jayasinghe, had she run in the 200m final.

Sri Lanka's Manjula Kumara Wijesekera, the emerging star at the recent IAAF Junior World championships in Jamaica, finished only eighth in the men's high jump with 2.10m. Wijesekera started his attempts at 2.05m.

He cleared his 2.10m in the first attempt itself but failed to jump 2.15m mark in his all three final attempts. It was the identical height he cleared in the IAAF Junior World Championship final in Jamaica last June after a 2.18m performance in the qualifying round there.

Besides Sri Lankan Darsha (women's 400m) and Indian Shah (women's 200m), the other gold medallists in today's athletic events were Jin-Taek Lee of South Korea (men's high jump final - 2.23m), Neelam Singh of India (women's discus throw - 64.55m - new Games record), Sunita Rani of India (women's 1,500m - 4 mts, 06.03 sec. - new Games record), Yun Feng of China (women's 100m hurdles - 12.96 sec), Shingo Suetsugu of Japan (men's 200m final - 20.38 sec) and Makhld Al Otaibi of Saudi Arabia (men's 5,000m - 13 mts, 41.48 sec).

Cograts from Minister of Sports

The Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Johnston Fernando in a congratulatory message to Damayanthi Dharsha on her 400 metre success at the 14th Asian Games in Busan says: "We watched you run with courage and determination to bring honour to our country by setting a new Asian record for the 400m women's event. We Lankans are proud of you.

The minister also congratulated Rohan Pradeep Kumara for winning a bronze medal in the men's 400 metre event.

To netballers

Johnston Fernando, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports in a message sent to the victorious Junior Netball team which won the 3rd Asian Junior Netball Championship in Kuala Lumpur said: "You have done the country proud. You have gone through lot of hardships to win this c'ship. This is a moment for Lankans to be proud of your great achievement.

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