Prasanna fails to reach the podium

Chinthana Wasala

The third and final edition of the Asian Athletics Grand Prix Championship 2008 did not bring expected results for the Sri Lankans when Prasanna Amarasekera failed to make a clean sweep of all three gold medals in his pet 400m event at the My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi, Vietnam yesterday.

Prasanna Amarasekera even failed to make it for the top three slots as he was dropped to the fourth place in this event for which he clocked 47.46 seconds. But his teammate Rohitha Pushpakumara made it to the podium to collect the Bronze medal clocking 47.41 seconds.

Chandrika Subhashini succeeded in retaining her silver medal in the women’s 400m with a time of 53.84 seconds. She had a better time in Korat where the second leg took place, but had hopes of polishing her performances in Hanoi.

With the failure to do so, she failed to achieve the grade for the Beijing Olympics. Her teammate Menaka Wickramasinghe once again failed to impress and she finished fifth with 55.95 seconds.

But the women’s 400m relay which saw Menaka and Chandrika included in the Sri Lankan team, were able to win the bronze medal.

The team manager Sunil Gunawardena strongly believed that Sri Lanka could win a medal in the women’s 400m relay, which they could not achieve earlier in the two previous legs. But with this result in the third, Gunawardena was highly impressed with women’s team.

The men’s 400m relay which the Lankans had very high hopes, saw them in the second slot while Umanga Surendra was placed fourth in the men’s 100m.

Priyangika Madumanthi and Premila Priyadarshani did not compete in their events yesterday.