43rd National Sports Festival; Favorites shine on opening day

The Athletic competitions of the 43rd National Sports Festival (NSF) commenced today (22nd) at the Kotawila Stadium in Matara with 06 finals being worked off on the opening day morning session which was followed by the ceremonial opening of the meet by the Hon. Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and the Hon. Minster of Sports Dayasiri Jayasekara.

The first scheduled event of the day was the Men’s 10000m final allowing the competing provinces to open their accounts straight away. Central Province took major honors winning two medals in the opening race with D.L Samarajeewa clinching Gold and G K Bandara securing Silver while A P Maduranga of Sabaragamuwa province won Bronze. Samarajeewa who is currently the leading long distance runner based in the country showed his class as he managed to finish the race lapping several competitors with a timing of 31:14.22 while second placed Bandara was almost 4 seconds behind him.

Women’s 5000m final was the next race on the schedule. Sabaragamuwa province took major honours in the competition with the national record holder in the 1500m Nimali Ratnayake having a golden finish which was timed at 17.09.6. A N L Ariyadasa, also from Sbaragamuwa, placed second while H S Anusha of Uva province was placed third.

The women’s Pole Vault attracted a lot of attention with Jaffna’s vaulting queen Anitha Jegathiswaran of Northern Province, who has made breaking the national record a habit, taking part in the event. Anitha certainly did not disappoint as she went on to renew the National record for the fourth time this year and renewed the NSF meet record clinching Gold with a leap of 3.48m.  A Karunawansa of Eastern Province was placed second while D Ranasinghe of Western province was placed third.

Related – First National record at the 43rd National Sports Festival

National Record holder and the meet record holder in the Women’s Shot putt, Tharika Fernando of Western province stamped her authority from the word go in the women’s Shot putt as the distance she achieved was almost two meters ahead of the rest of the competition. Tharika clinched Gold for a throw of 14.35. She was a meter short of her National record breaking throw at the last year’s meet and could not go past the 15m mark which no other Sri Lankan female has achieved before.

Men’s discus throw final was a very closely contested competition with the lead changing hands amongst the first three contestants after each round. D B Ratnayake of Central Province was in the lead after the first three throws but M Aasik came out with a throw of 42.97m which won him the Gold pushing Ratnayake into second place. Sunanda Niroshana of Southern province was placed third with his throw of 41.21m.

200m Men’s and Women’s Heats and Semi Finals was worked off today with the most notable absentee being the South Asian gold medalist Rumeshika Ratnayake who is currently on a two week program along with Nimali Liyanarachchi. Many of the familiar names in the men’s 200m were also missing.  The 200m Women’s and Men’s Finals will be held tomorrow (23rd)

Women’s 200m Finals Start List

Men’s 200m Finals Start List

At 02.00pm on the 22nd , the first day of the Athletic competitions, defending champions Western province is in command with a total of 212  well ahead of Central Province who are placed second with a total of 108 medals.  

43rd National Sports Festival – Overall Medal stand as at 02.00pm on 22nd September 22, 2017