‘Susan’ in better shape than Sydney Olympics - Tony Campbell

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from China

OLYMPICS: BEIJING, Aug. 16: Veteran American coach Tony Campbell said star Sri Lanka woman sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe is currently in better shape, than her lead up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2004.

In an exclusive interview with the ‘Sunday Observer’ in the Chinese capital here today, Campbell said Jayasinghe is in “excellent shape to face the challenge” ahead.

“She is in better shape than when she was preparing for Sydney Olympics. She had an excellent training stint in Los Angeles and ran an impressive 22.70 seconds in the 200m and 11.24 seconds in the 100m in two major international meets,” said Campbell as he kept a sharp eye on the celebrated Lankan woman athlete who had a long work out today in preparations for her women’s 200m of the XX1Xth Olympics Games scheduled for Tuesday.

Campbell, the man who guided Jayasinghe for Olympic glory at the Sydney Games eight years ago, spent over two hours in overseeing Jayasinghe’s workouts at the training venue this morning.

The 32-year-old veteran woman sprinter has been training in Los Angeles, USA under Campbell since the beginning of this year and has been shaping well under her American coach. “She is 100 per healthy. Susan (as he calls Jayasinghe) was slightly over weight and now she has lost about two kilograms and is in better shape,” he added.

Capbell, who has coached many champion athletes including former Olympic gold medallist Maurice Green, said the Lankan lass is both mentally and physically fit for the challenge ahead.

In fine fettle

“Compared to her standard before the Sydney Olympics, she is in much better shape.

But when I compare the two, she had two good pre-Olympic meets in Japan before the Sydney Games. In contrast, she had two impressive performance at the beginning of this season but had to skip a couple of meets before she came across an injury in her lower hamstring,” he said.

But Campbell said Jayasinghe has completely recovered now and is 100 per cent fit to make her presence felt in her pet event, in which she has bagged medals at the Olympics as well as at the IAAF World Championships.

“Susan is an athlete of superior quality and she still looks good and healthy. She knows that this is going to be her last Olympics and that she should make the best use of it. She is in excellent shape and I am very optimistic that she will do well here,” Campbell concluded.

Besides Jayasinghe, the other Sri Lankan who will be seen in action on Tuesday will be ace javelin thrower Nadeeka Lakmali, who too has been hard at practice today.

Russian Borchin wins men’s 20km walk

Though Lakmali badly feels the absence of her coach, she has been working with available resources and said Athletics Manager Dhammika Nandakumar has been helping her at practice sessions here.

Meanwhile, Russian Valeriy Borchin clocked the fastest time to win gold in the men’s 20km walk worked off this morning. His timing of one hour, 19 minutes and.01 second put him ahead of Jefferson Perez of Ecuador with a close 0.14 second lead.

“I never expected to win this medal. At the beginning, I was lagging behind. That was not my strategy,” said the gold medallist. “I feel proud to have won this Gold medal for Russia. I feel my dream has come true,” he added.

The bronze medal went to Australian Jared Tallent who finished in 1 hour 19:42 minutes.”Bronze is fantastic,” Tallent said, quite pleased with his achievement.

“I was never expecting to be a medallist.”

Host China’s Wang Hao came in fourth with a personal best of 1 hour 19:47 minutes while reigning Olympic champion Ivano Brugnetti of Italy took fifth in 1 hour 19:51 minutes.