Day two of the Junior National Athletics Championship 2022 was worked off today (8) at the Sugathadasa Stadium, Colombo, with the hurdlers managing to light up the stadium with a few stellar performances.
On the track, all age categories’ finals of the 200m, 110m, 400m and 800m events were held while 14 other field event finals were also completed to round off the day.
>> Jayavi, Kaveesha, Keshavi impress in Junior Nationals
The day definitely belonged to the Girls’ High School Kandy athlete Amesha Hettiarachchi who secured two Meet Records in U20 girls’ 400m Hurdles (0.762m) and 100m Hurdles (0.838m) events. In her pet event, 400m Hurdles, Hettiarachchi registered a time of 61.04s in the heats and 61.40s in the finals to secure the gold medal.
(Previous Meet Record– Yamani Dulanjali – 61.68s – 2017)
>> Photos – Junior National Athletic Championship -2022 – Day 2
Hettiarachchi also holds the National Junior (U20) Record for the 400m Hurdles event with a timing of 60.23s which she managed to record earlier this year. With that performance, she has also fulfilled the qualification standard for the 2022 World Athletics Junior Championship which will be held from 2 to 7 August 2022 at the Estadio Olímpico Pascual Guerrero in Cali, Colombia
In the U20 girls’ 100m Hurdles event, Hettiarachchi grabbed the gold medal with another Meet Record. The final timing was 14.86s (-1.8m/s) which is a 0.09s improvement from the last Meet record.
(Previous Meet Record– Sandeepani Dayananda – 14.95s – 2011)
>> Athletes in red hot form for World Junior Championship 2022
In U20 boys’ 400m Hurdles event, Ambagamuwa Central College athlete Dhanuka Darshana, who has already been crowned as the national champion of the 400m Hurdles in the National Athletics Championship, produced another impressive performance in the final to rewrite the record books. His 52.11s run today is the new Meet Record for the junior category.
(Previous Meet Record– Uditha Chandrasena – 52.22s – 2016)
In the U20 boy’s 110m Hurdles event, Nadun Kaveesha Bandara of Royal College, Colombo who had renewed the Meet Record for the event in the heats, won the gold medal with a timinig of 14.24s in the final. Both Dhanuka and Nadun have also qualified for the 2022 World Athletics Junior Championship.
Meanwhile in the 800m finals, Tharushi Karunaratne and Shanika Lakshani cruised to victories in their age categories with timings of 2.10.18min and 2.08.44min respectively. In the boys’ 800m age category finals, WMU Kawishka Sri Bandara managed to produce the best performance of the day (1:55.09min)
>> Click here to check out all the results on day 01 & 02
| New Meet Records so far – Junior National Athletics Championship 2022 | |||||
| Event | Age. | Gender | Athlete | Performance | Previous Record |
| Long Jump | U18 | W | Nethmika Madushani Herath | 5.98m | Ishali Chandrasekara – 5.77m – 2004 |
| Pole Vault | U18 | W | Paranththaman Abishalini | 3.15m | N Dakshitha – 3.02m – 2018 |
| Javelin | U16 | W | Keshavi Udeshani Weerasinghe | 37.42m | HAVLK Hapuarachchi -35.94m – 2018 |
| Shot Put | U18 | M | Jayavi Ranhinda Alwis | 16.98m | Malinda Madushanka– 16.32m – 2014 |
| 110m Hur. | U20 | M | Nadun Kaveesha Bandara | 14.14s | Akila Rivishanka – 14.19s – 2016 |
| 400m Hur. | U20 | M | Dhanuka Darshana | 52.11s | Uditha Chandrasena – 52.22s – 2016 |
| 100m Hur. | U20 | W | Amesha Hettiarachchi | 14.86s | Sandeepani Dayananda – 14.95s – 2011 |
| 400m Hur. | U20 | W | Amesha Hettiarachchi | 61.04s | Yamani Dulanjali – 61.68s – 2017 |
Schedule for June 9th
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 at the Sugathadasa Stadium, Colombo and the hurdlers managed to light up the stadium with few stellar performances.){kind=link}