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Wijesekera betters Sri Lanka mark

The Asian Grand Prix in Colombo saw Sri Lanka's champion high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekera improving on his national record.

Two other seasoned campaigners - Susanthika Jayasinghe and Rohan Pradeep Kumara Fernando, continued from where they had left at the first leg in Thailand, registering back to back wins in their respective events.

Sri Lanka has been producing top athletes only in track events in recent times. Hence, there has been hardly any interest amongst local fans on field events. But the situation has changed with the emergence of Wijesekera who seems to have a bright future ahead.

He first came in to the limelight at the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championship in Jamaica where he accounted for a new Sri Lanka record of 2.18m in the qualifying round. In the finals, he cleared 2.15m to finish ninth.

Ever since, the promising young lad has shown good progress and was awarded a training stint in the United States.

It was made possible by none other than Sri Lanka's first ever Asian Games gold medallist, Nagalingam Ediriweerasingham, who incidentally was a top class high jumper during his day, some four decades ago.

Introduced by the AASL Secretary Prema Pinnawale, Ediriweerasingham played a God father role to young Wijesekera.

It was that early stay in the United States, supported by Ediriweerasingham, that shaped the young high jumper. Soon, Wijesekera was making progress, bettering his own Sri Lanka mark to 2.20m, 2.22 and last Sunday, he made it 2.25m, just 0.02m short of the Athens Olympic Games qualifying mark.

Now, the target should be to give him a couple of more opportunities in competitive meets and give it a try whether he could reach the Olympic qualifying mark of 2.27m before August 11 deadline.

AASSL Secretary Pinnawale has already used his good office to explore the possibilities of fielding Wijesekera in two circuit meets in Chennai and Bangalore, which would give an opportunity for Wijeskeera to improve on his new Sri Lanka mark and give it a try to book a place for Athens Olympics.

Also likely to come Wijesekera's way is a scholarship to a reputed sports University in the United States. This could really be the turning point of a future Sri Lanka star. The exposure he is bound to get in the US, if everything goes fine, counts a lot. It was a similar overseas training opportunity to Susanthika Jayasinghe in Los Angeles which shaped her to win an Olympic medal in 2000.

Olympic qualification

Everyone in the athletic circles is keen to see the progress of Susanthika Jayasinghe and find when she would reach the Olympic qualification mark of 23.17 seconds in women's 200m. But this seems to have turned out to be a 'headache' for Jayasinghe, who has been unduly pressurised by the media and all corners to speed out overnight.

It was because of this that the 28-year-old Lankan sprint queen hit at her critics soon after clocking 23.38 seconds to win her pet event at the Colombo Grand Prix. Even if Jayasinghe fails to make it at the final leg of the Asian Grand Prix in Manila today, it will not be the end of the road for her.

Considering the true capabilities of Jayasinghe, who has a career best timing of 22.28 in her pet event, reaching 23.17 target before early August is not going to be an uphill task. She is well and truly aware of it and does not want to rush things.

Jayasinghe is gradually reaching her peak and needs to speed up systematically. Having fully recovered of a hamstring injury, which forced her out of women's 200m at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, Jayasinghe is not ready to take the high risk of peaking overnight.

No athlete would like to take that type of risk and ruin their careers.

Furthermore, Jayasinghe plans to run at least in a couple of European Grand Prix meets by mid next month. Running on sprinter friendly fast tracks with the cream of world class athletes in the European circuit should inspire Jayasinghe.

That should help her to accelerate and shape up for the Olympics. It is necessary for Jayasinghe to compete in a few top European or American meets, if she is to have any medal hopes in Athens.

Jayasinghe (women's 100m) and Damayanthi Darsha (women's 400m) have already qualified to run at Olympics. By June 20, Sri Lanka's men's 4 x 400m relay team was placed 16th in the World rankings and had a good chance of making it to Olympics. But an unexpected injury to experienced Sugath Tillakaratne may shatter their dreams of a place at Athens Olympics.

From this year, only the best 16 teams each in the world would qualify for each of the four relays. That's to compete from semi-final stage without any heats in relays.

The absence of Tillakaratne was badly felt as Sri Lanka was placed second, behind India, in the first two legs of the Asian Grand Prix series. At the third leg in Manila today, the Lankans need to finish their event somewhere under 3:02 plus if they are to keep their chances alive.

Dialog powers Olympians

Sri Lanka contingent for the summer Olympic Games in Athens received a big boost when Sri Lanka's leading mobile communication provider Dialog GSM came forward with a rich financial package. Dialog GSM will pump over Rs.three million to become the official sponsor of the Sri Lanka contingent for Athens Olympics.

It is not that hard to find sponsors when a sporting event is held in Sri Lanka. But the mileage that a sponsor gets when sponsoring a local team for an overseas event is marginal, if not negligible. But Dialog GSM has not merely thought of the mileage they get for their investment.

They have come forward to fulfill their national obligation as a true corporate citizen, to power the Sri Lanka contingent and provide the future today for our budding sportsmen and women.

Dialog's commitment towards national teams touring abroad goes way back to 1998 when they first sponsored Sri Lanka contingent for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

This will be the second time that the company is supporting the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka to sponsor an Olympic contingent. Dialog GSM was the proud sponsor of the Lankan contingent when Susanthika Jayasiinghe won her country's first Olympic medal in 52 years in Sydney 2000.

The CEO of MTN Networks, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya would be a proud man to be associated with Sri Lanka's success at Olympic, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games level. Their contributions would go a long way in the annals of Sri Lanka sports.

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