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| Saturday, 21 August 2004 |
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I will run my heart out - Darsha Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from Greece ATHENS, Friday - Asian Games triple gold medalist, Damayanthi Darsha of Sri Lanka will come out for the first time in her third Olympic Games when she runs in women's 400m first round heats at the main Olympic Stadium here tomorrow (21). Veteran Sri Lanka sprint queen, who made her Olympic debut in Barcelona 12 years ago, is down to run in her women's 400m round 1 heat at 9.45 am (12.45 pm Sri Lanka time) on Saturday. There are six women's 400m first round heats down for decision tomorrow morning. Darsha completed a long final work out at a nearby Olympic training venue today as her coach Sunil Gunawardena, the man who guided the lass from Ampara to taste many success since 1991, kept a close eye. She has been Sri Lanka's most consistent athlete since winning her first South Asian Games gold medal in 1991. This is her third Olympics after Barcelona 1992 and Sydney 2000. Having competed in three successive Asian Games, Darsha has four medals, including three gold medals. She made a dream debut in Hiroshima 1994 with a bronze in women's 200m when compatriot Susanthika Jayasinghe won the silver of the same event and then won three gold in two Asian Games - women's 400m and 200m in Bangkok 1998 and women's 400m in Busan 2002. The writer incidentally followed Darsha in her all five Olympic and Asian Games tours, but feels that she is not at her brilliant best now. It was mainly due to her one year lay off due to an injury, during which she missed the 2003 IAAF World Championships in Paris and 2004 South Asian Games in Islamabad. Her coach Sunil Gunawardena too agreed with the idea and said the 29-year-old Lankan lass badly lost valuable competition time during the period she was out of track due to a leg injury. However, Gunawardena said Darsha has worked hard over the past couple of months and managed to win third place in the 2004 Asian Grand Prix Series. "She has not regained her best yet. That is mainly because she did not have time for training. Of course she has been training but the period was insufficient for her to get back to perfect shape. Nevertheless, is determined to do better than what she did in the Asian Grand Prix series," Gunawardena said. Darsha said she is gradually regaining her form and said she would run her heart out here. "I will do my best. I know the competition level is too high. But I will make every effort," a determined Darsha said on the eve of her pet event. Saturday's athletic schedule includes women's 100m semifinals, the event in which Jayasinghe was down to compete but made a controversial pull out from the heats. At the Olympic Shooting Centre, Pushpamali Ramanayake competed in her second event of the Athens Olympics but without success. Having made a qualifying round exit in women's 10m air rifle event, Ramanayake had another gloomy third Olympics when she was placed 25th in women's 50m rifle three-position event. Ramanayake had scored of 195 (98 and 97) in prone position, 181 in standing (91 and 90) and 191 in kneeling (97 and 94) to end up with a grand total of 567 points. Kazakhstan's Olga Dovgun fired an impressive 588 in the qualifying round. But in the final, she scored only 588 to drop to the fourth place. In the final of this event, Russian Lioubov Galkina, who was placed second in the qualifying round, came first with 688.4 to take the gold, an Olympic record for a final score. The final Sri Lankan competitor to be seen in action - marathon runner Anuradha Indrajith Cooray, is making hard preparations. He completes two work out sessions per day - morning and evening. |
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