Red carpet welcome for Susie as she returns from Osaka today

Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from Japan

ATHLETICS: It will be a red letter day in the annals Sri Lanka’s sports when its most successful athlete - Susanthika Jayasinghe returns home on Wednesday (5) with the World Championship medal she won in Japan.

Jayasinghe, who bagged women’s 200m bronze medal at the 11th IAAF World Championship at Osaka’s Nagai Stadium last Friday, will be returning to Colombo as a proud daughter of the Mother Lanka.

The 31-year-old ace woman sprinter will be accorded a red carpet welcome when she arrives at the Bandaranaike International Airport on flight SQ 466 which is scheduled to arrive at 11.35 a.m. on Wednesday (5).

Rare feat

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, while congratulating and commending the rare feat of Jayasinghe, has assured the Government’s fullest support in her endeavour to win another Olympic Games medal. Jayasinghe paid a tribute to the sports loving President, saying that he has been calling regularly and inquiring about her progress.

Jayasinghe, who pocketed USD 20,000 for her effort at the 203-nation world athletic extravaganza in Osaka, will also be richly rewarded by the Sports Ministry. On the instructions of the President, the Government would also step in to support the Lankan sprint queen when she starts her Olympic preparations in the United States from this year.

Silver medal

Sri Lanka’s ‘Dazzling Gazelle’, Jayasinghe became the island nation’s first ever medallist in the IAAF World Championship history when she bagged the silver behind Ukraine’s Zahanna Pintusevich-Blocks in Athens, 1997.

Incidentally, it was then Minister of Fisheries Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the President of the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka. Ten years later when Jayasinghe sprang anther surprise with a medal amidst tough competition, the former AASL chief is now the President of Sri Lanka.

With a month away from the World Championship, Jayasinghe was rated only 22nd in the IAAF world rankings for women’s 200m. By that time, she had not done her pet event under 23 seconds for a long time. But in the first round heat and in the quarter finals of women’s 200m in Osaka, Jayasinghe clocked her beat timing in seven years - an inspiring 22.55 seconds.

Dark horse

With the American quartet - Allison Felix, Torri Edwards, Sanya Richards and Lashauntea Moore joining Jamaicans Veronica Campbell, the fastest women at the World Championship, and Aleen Bailey, Jayasinghe was a dark horse in women’s 200m. Yet, she turned the form book upside down to give Sri Lanka another World Championship medal after a decade, which is indeed a creditable feat for a sprinter.

“I feel proud that I could do it once more,” said Jayasinghe, who did not get media attention at all, until she sprang that big surprise on Friday night. She too was aware what her critics have been saying.

Adverse comments

Perhaps, it was those adverse comments that gave her the courage to bounce back.

“They said Susanthika’s days are over and that I have nothing more to offer for Sri Lanka athletics. I wanted to prove them wrong,” says Jayasinghe, who even does not have a sponsor still. Even the Sports Ministry allowance she gets now was started only three months ago.

“I was looking for a sponsor but nobody wanted to take a chance with me. But I hope that things would change and everybody would help and courage me in my endeavour to win an Olympic gold,” she says. Jayasinghe now plans to go back to the United States before the end of this year and start her preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.