Ransilu - three national records

S. M. Jiffrey Abdeen Kandy sports corr.

Weightlifting prodigy twenty year old Ransilu Jayatillake of Kandy YMCA was once again on a record breaking trail when he broke three national weightlifting records and one of them being a 14 year old record which is the oldest record at the Senior weightlifting trials held at the Sports Ministry Gymnasium in Colombo on October 24th. This was conducted by the Sri Lanka Weightlifting Federation for the selection of weightlifters for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Cyprus.

Competing in the 85 kilogramme body weight category creating record break lifts by snatching 127 kilogrammes, clean and jerking 163 kilogrammes to total 290 kilogrammes. All three being new marks for the 85 body weight category.

In snatching 127 kilogrammes he broke 14 year old record of 122 kilogrammes held by Ranjith Kumara of Slimline Sports Club - an improvement of 05 kilogrammes.

When he clean and jerked 163 kilogrammes he lowered the existing record of 162 kilogrammes held for 12 years by T.M.U.B. Jayatillake (no relation of him) of Sri Lanka Army.

This gave young Ransilu Jayatillake a total of 290 kilogrammes which eclipsed the existing 12 year old record of 280 kilogrammes held by T.M.U.B. Jayatillake of Sri Lanka Army. Thus he has improved his record by 10 kilogrammes which will take a long time for beating.

Big made Ransilu Jayatillake is a glutton for breaking records and this year alone he has created 07 senior national weightlifting records in different weight categories.

He first participated in the 105 kilogramme body weight category and slimmed down to 94 kilogramme category and now he has further scaled down to 85 kilogramme category breaking records in all these weights like his mother breaking coconuts at home.

Ransilu Jayatillake is also the first weightlifter in the history of iron sport in Sri Lanka to make a total lift of 300 kilogrammes which he did in the 105 kg. category. He is an old boy of Kingswood College and is presently training under Athula Wijewickrema at the Kandy YMCA and is also guided by his feather the versatile D.U.M. Jayatillake a triple international in weightlifting, body building and power lifting.