Dulaj, Nadeeshani qualify for 400 metres finals

Chinthana Wasala in Singapore

Dulaj Lahiru and Nadeeshani Henderson qualified for the finals of the boys’ and girls’ 400 metres respectively to keep Sri Lanka’s hopes alive at the Bishan Stadium in the first day of Athletics in the inaugural Asian Youth Games in Singapore yesterday.

Dulaj finished the third heat of the boys’ 400m yesterday evening behind Thongpoon Nitipol of Thailand. Dulaj, the young athlete from Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa who ran in the seventh lane, clocked 51.55 seconds and Nadeeshani from Gateway College, Colombo finished third with 59.63 seconds.

Dulaj is expected to come up with better performances in his final round.

He finished at a time of 50.77 seconds in the qualifiers back in Colombo.

Nimesha Madushani Siriwardena, jumped her personal best of 1.65m in the girls’ high jump to finish fourth.

The athlete from Galenbindunuwewa MV lowered her previous record of 1.64m which she set at the Junior Nationals earlier this year.

Heshan Amarasinghe finished fourth in the boys’ 100m. Akshana Maralanda too had to be satisfied with the fourth position in her girls’ 100m third heat.

The athletes from South East Asian countries were seen on top of almost every event, winning most of them.

The best example was the winner in the boys’ 100m second heat, the Japanese Masaki Nashimoto who finished with 10.89 seconds.

Today, Sri Lankans will take part in four sports. Keshani Perera will run in the girls’ 100m hurdles, Indunil Herath in the boys’ 800m, and boys’ and girls’ 4X200m first rounds. The boys’ team consists of Heshan Amarasinghe, Dulaj Lahiru, Gayashan Athauda and Dhanushka Fernando and the girls’ team includes Pabasara Senanayake, Nadeeshani Henderson, Naomika Jayathillake and Keshani Perera.

Sri Lankan cagers will take on Nepal in their boys’ group B preliminary round FIBA 33 match in the morning and Qatar in the evening.

The girls will play against Uzbekistan before the boys match with Qatar.

The Lankan Table Tennis mixed team, in group B along with Japan, Chinese Taipei, Macau and Maldives will also be seen in action today.

The preliminary round matches of beach volleyball will also start today at Siloso beach, Santosa.