Sri Lanka Masters Athletes win 36 Gold Medals

Japan swept the board at the recently concluded 17th Asian Masters Athletics Championships in Taipei, Taiwan with a massive haul of 175 Gold medals.

The winners of the 16th edition of the aMA championships, India had to be content with the third place behind the host nation Taiwan. Sri Lanka was placed 4th in the championship table with 36 Gold 43 Silver and 43 Bronze medals.

Sri Lanka entered a team of 210 athletes but only 150 were able to make the tour due to various constraints mainly financial. Otherwise the medal haul would have been much more.

Altogether 12 Games records were bettered by our athletes with 5 new records been established. J M Punchi Banda M75 in the 5000m Race Walk created a new games record with a time of 33:49.07 while Rekha Edirisinghe in the women 40 group established a new record in her pet event, 2000m steeple chase returning a time of 9:10.41. She also holds the W 35 steeple chase record which she established in 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In the 10000m M35 group AAMPK Padmakumara also established a new Asian record with a time of 35: 41.89.

The other two New Asian Records came in the 4x400m Relays. Men’s 40 group relay quartet comprising Waruna Sanjeewa, Anura Fernando,Roshan Samarasinghe and PMS Bandara and M 55 group quartet, Sunil Wilfred, Piyadasa Fernando , HR Dhanawardena and GID Karunaratne accounted for the two new records.

The following athletes bettered the existing Asian Record in the respective events although they failed to win the first place.

SDCS Weerasinghe M35 Triple Jump 2nd 13.91m , LSD de Silva, M35 Triple Jump 5th 13.08m, HR Chaminda M35 10000m, 2nd 36:13.10, GN Karunathilaka M35 3000m st/ch 2nd 11:02.93, GWS Kumara, M35 Long Jump 3rd 6.41m, LSD de Silva M35 Long Jump 6th 6.24m, 4x100m Relay M35 3rd