Sri Lanka win 15 golds at Masters Athletics

ATHLETICS: Sri Lanka Masters Athletic Team returned home with a haul of 151 medals which comprised 49 gold, 47 silver and 55 bronze medals from the 15th Asian Masters Athletic Championships held recently in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Sri Lanka was fourth in the medal tally, behind India, Japan and Thailand.

There were quite a number of outstanding performances recorded by the Sri Lankan athletes, including a new Asian Masters record and one best achievement. Rekha Damayanthi Edirisinghe (women 35 years) established a record in the 2,000 steeplechase, `clocking' a time of 9 mins 26.40 seconds and Roshan Samarasinghe (men 35 years) won the 400 metres hurdles with a best achievement timing of 1 minute 01.61 seconds.

The most outstanding athlete among the Sri Lankan contingent was Irangani Karunaratne (women 60 years) who won gold in all four events she participated.

Then Rekha Edirisinghe (women 35 years) won three golds and a silver.

In the Sri Lanka squad there was that "Evergreen" Mallika Sachithananda (women 70 years) who won 3 gold and a silver in the four events that she participated in.

The other outstanding performances came from R.M.T. Ratnayake (men 35 years), W.A.V. Welpahala (women 35 years), A.J. Weerasooriya (men 40 years), R.M. Mangalika (women 40 years) and K.A. Wanniarachchi (women 35 years) who collected 2 golds each.