Track and field showpiece from today

Dinesh Weerawansa

SA GAMES: The showpiece of the 10th South Asian Games - the much looked forward to track & field competition, will commence at the Sugathadasa Outdoor Stadium today.

The hosts Sri Lanka will have several gold medal prospects lined up for this evening’s show with Olympic medallist Susanthika Jayasinghe being the trump card.

The Sydney Olympics women’s 200m gold medallist Jayasinghe will be running in the women’s 200m event, which will be a direct final scheduled for 6.10 p.m. today. Running along with Jayasinghe in the women’s 200m final will be sprinter Sujani Buddhika, who replaces injured Damayanthi Darsha, the three-time Asian Games gold medallist.

Jayasinghe looked pretty confident on the eve of her pet event,in which Sri Lanka has the brightest gold medal hope. “I am very much relaxed and anxiously looking forward to my race. Winning the gold medal is not just my target. I want to do that with a new South Asian Games record,” she said.

The 30-year-old celebrated woman sprinter who won an Olympic medal for Sri Lanka after 52 years in Sydney 2000, said her American coach Tony Campbell has been in constant touch with her.

“Tony (Campbell) has been sending me all the schedules and my husband Dhammika, who guides me here, trains me accordingly. Everything has been going according to the plan and I hope to go for a record,” a confident Jayasinghe said.

Besides Jayasinghe, the other gold medal prospects for Sri Lanka are javelin thrower Anne Maheshi Silva and sprinter Rohan Pradeep Kumara.

Silva, the Asian Championship silver medallist from Sri Lanka Navy, is looking forward for yet another memorable performance on home soil. Rohan Pradeep will be running in men’s 200m event along with H. Weerasuriya.

Hosts Sri Lanka has a good prospect in men’s 1,500 through soldier Chaminda Wijekoon. S. Weerasinghe will be competing in women’s long jump event.

But Sri Lankans will not have things that easy in many events as India has made a good progress in recent times. Considering the performances of most top Indian athletes during this year’s Indian national championship, they are bound to make their presence felt.

The Indians have worked with a vision over the past couple of years and are ready to challenge Sri Lanka’s track supremacy.