Nimali Liyanarachchi won the Silver Medal in the women’s 800m after a thrilling race and set a New Sri Lanka Indoor Record at the 7th Asian Indoor Championships.
Bahrain’s Marta Hirpato Yota won the women’s 800M title with a time of 2:04.59mins while Nimali finished slightly behind with 2:04.88mins and Japan’s Yume Kitamura won the Bronze with 2:05.04mins.
Nimali Liyanarachchi qualified for the final of the Women’s 800m having one of the best timings from the rest. She missed out on the automatic qualification place when she came in third but her timing of 2:09.26mins was enough for a place in the final. In that heat too Marta Hirpato Yota was the winner with a timing of 2:08.28mins.
Manjula wins Bronze at Asian Indoor Championship
Nimali ran a 2:09.40mins a week back to win the Gold Medal at the South Asian Games. Nimali also set a National Sports Festival Meet Record of 2:05.32mins in December, 2015.
Indoor tracks are 200m, so the amount of running the runner has to do in bends are more. In context if Nimali had run the way she did on an outdoor track she could definitely have shattered the National Record which is 2:03.85mins set by Dammika Menike in 1992.
