The 88th Senior National Athletic Championship:
Rashila and Shiromi set new national records
Chinthana WASALA
The women’s 3000m steeple chase new Sri Lanka record holder
Sri Lanka Air Force’s Rashila Dulakshi. |
The opening day of the 88th Senior National Athletic Championship was
quite productive as athletes from Sri Lanka Air Force dominated, setting
up two new Sri Lankan records at the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium in
Diyagama, Homagama yesterday.
The Women’s pole vault New Sri Lanka record holder Sri Lanka
Air Force’s Shiromi Dilrukshi Ranasinghe in action. She
cleared a height of 2.96 metres. Pictures by Susantha
Wijegunasekera |
Airwoman Shiromi Dilrukshi Ranasinghe cleared 2.96 metres in the
women’s pole vault to account for the first Sri Lanka record of the
three day athletics extravaganza. The twenty year old bettered Anne
Pumali’s two year old record of 2.95 meters which was set in Colombo
The second to enter the record books was youngster Rashila Dulakshi
of Sri Lanka Air Force. The 19 year old athlete from Tissamaharama who
did exceptionally well and clocked 11 minutes 00.30 seconds in the
women’s 3000m steeple chase.
Her achievement was a far better one from her silver medal winning
performance (11 minutes 30 seconds) at the 14th Asian Junior
Championships held in Hanoi, Vietnam earlier this year.
Other notable performance of the first day came out in the women’s
200m final, which star athlete Airwoman Chandrika Subhashini won in
style clocking 24.43 seconds.
This meets acts as the last opportunity for Sri Lankan athletes to
reach the qualifying standards to make their way to compete at the
upcoming Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Today, there will be 13
finals worked off and the meet concludes tomorrow. |