Thamara good pick by Mahamaya

Upananda Jayasundera

Thamara Padmini Wickremesinghe is a Physical Training Teacher attached to Mahamaya Girls' College, Kandy and the School could not have found a better person to be their athletic coach, as Thamara was a formidable athlete during her younger days.

She won the first women's marathon raec in 1982 recording a timing of 3 hours 21 minutes for the 26 mile 385 yards distance and she also represented Sri Lanka in the Singapore Marathon in 1985. On the track, she won the 800 and 1500 metres races for 3 consecuitve years at the national games and to cap it all she was awarded the best performance award for women in all 3 years.

That was not all as Thamara won the 1500, 3000 and 5000 metres events representing Sri Lanka in the 35 year age group at the veterans Athletic Meet held in Malaysia in 1997 and in Japan in 1998. So it has been her natural talent that kept her going during her competitive days as there were no training facilities at her school Alawwa Central.

With the knowledge gained during her school days, Thamara did not let it drip away when she finished her schooling and she was able to bring out champions when she took to athletic coaching at Mahamaya Girls School, Kandy which emerged champions at the Central Province Athletic Championships from 1992 to 2000.

At that time there were individual athletes who gained much from Thamara's coaching and Herath an old girl of Mahamaya was a member of the Sri Lanka Women's 4 x 400 metres relay team that participated in the Olympic Games in 2000.

Also there was Shalika Ranasinghe who represented Sri Lanka at Interntional Meets.

She has not lost her touch in athletics as she is practicing for the forthcoming Teachers Sports meet sheduled to be held at the end of this month at Anuradhapura.