‘Shehan could improve on his personal best in 100 metres’

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from Germany

Sri Lanka coach Sunil Gunawardena said sprinter Shehan Ambepitiya could well improve on his personal best timing for men’s 100m at the IAAF World Championship which begins here on Saturday.

Gunawardena, a member of Sri Lanka gold medal-winning 4 x 400m relay team at the 1974 Teheran Asian Games, said he is happy with the early form shown by the young athlete. “He had a good start to his international career with three gold medals at the Junior Commonwealth Games. He is definitely a future medal prospect for Sri Lanka at international level,” he said.

But Gunawardena admitted that the pressure would be too much for the Lankan lad at the Berlin World Championship. “But this is a good start. This is going to be a good experience and if he could make his presence felt here in Berlin by advancing to next rounds, that alone would be a creditable achievement,” he added.

Ambepitiya will be competing in men’s 100m on a wildcard entry but the lad has been working hard to make his presence felt at his World Championship debut “I know this is going to be a big challenge but I am keeping my cool and would look forward to take race by race.

My initial target would be to better my personal best of 10.43 seconds and if I do that, I may be able make it to the second round,” said the down to earth sprinter who is a student of Gateway International School.

The nine-day world track and field extravaganza gets underway in the German capital of Berlin on Saturday

At the time of writing, most of the participating athletes have reached Berlin and are hard at practice. That includes Sri Lanka Shehan Ambepitiya and Chandrika Subhashini who will be competing in men’s 100m and women’s 400m events respectively.

Asian sporting giants Japan has sent a team of 31 men and 26 women. Apart from their traditionally strong marathon squad, and Koji Murofushi in the Hammer Throw, the best medal hope for Japan, perhaps, is Yuki Yamazaki, a 50Km Race Walker. He is coached by Tsugumichi Suzuki, marathon coach, who guided Junko Asari to the marathon gold in the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart.

The local organisers are paying extra attention to the environment. The IAAF Green Project is an environmental initiative by theworld athletic governing body to promote the most environmentally sound implementation of athletics events as possible. The aim of the project at the upcoming World Championships is to contribute to more environmentally conscious thinking and actions by everyone involved.

Following the example set at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Osaka 2007 and in continuation of the Green Project, BOC, the Local Organising Committee of Berlin 2009 is deliberately approaching the task and responsibility of preparing and executing the World Championships as environmentally friendly as possible.

In order to achieve this, BOC, is carrying out various projects and every internal procedure in the organisation is being critically examined for opportunities to be more environmental, and all volunteers are being schooled in environmental issues.