The Athletics Championship of the 45th National Sports Festival kicked off on the 25th October at the Badulla Vincent Dias Grounds in ceremonial fashion.
Photos: 45th National Sports Festival – Day 01
The 3-day event will be the last hoorah of the National Sports Festival 2019, with 27 other sporting disciplines already concluded in all parts of the country.
The initial day schedule was re-visited to avoid rain interruptions and certain track events were finished off during the day while the field events only commenced from 6.00pm onwards.
While a slight shower visited the grounds, action was not interrupted during the day.
High jumper Ushan Thiwanka and Anjani Pulwansa made deafening statements in the Men’s High Jump and Women’s Long Jump events respectively on day 1, claiming stake for this year’s Best Athlete titles.
Maris Stella’s proud product, Ushan Thiwanka proved to the crowd why he’s Sri Lanka’s best, clearing 2.12m in the Men’s high jump to win his first ever National Sports Festival title.
The much awaited Women’s long jump event was a fight to the finish between defending champion Anjani Pulwansa and Lakshika Sugandi. However, Pulwansa defended her title with a jump of 5.96m leaving Sugandi with a silver place finish (5.76m). Young Sadeepa Henderson finished third with a leap of 5.67m.
The Rathnasena brothers lit up the Men’s 400m Hurdle track with a splendid supporting performance on day 1. The elder Rathnasena, Asanka won Gold with a time of 54.05 seconds while Asitha Rathnasena finished with a Silver medal, clocking 54.38sec.
Shyama Dulani won the Women’s 400m Hurdles event with a time of 01:02.02min while N D Wickramasinghe and Nadeeka Lakmali finished behind in second and third respectively.
Jaffna sensation Anitha Jegatheeswaran re-claimed her spot in the Women’s Pole Vault event clearing 3.30m. She found her performance to be sufficient for the job as she is coming off a leg injury.
The 200m event was the talk of the town on Day 1; Sumesh Wickramasinghe won Gold with a comfortable timing of 21.89 seconds. In the Women’s category it was Amasha De Silva who rose back on top after missing the National Meet podium due to injury, to win Gold with a time of 25.00sec.
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