Five Sri Lankan athletes will be in action on the 21st Asian Athletics Championship.

Five Sri Lankan athletes will be in action on the opening day of the 21st Asian Athletics Championship. The schedule includes heats and semifinals of both 400m and 100m.
New 400m champion Kalinga Kumarage of Army will be the first out from the block for Sri Lanka in the men’s 400m heats, while Chandrika Rasnayake of Air Force, who finished fourth in the last year’s Asian Games, will compete in the women’s 400m, and Sri Lanka has pinned their hopes on her.
Stocky sprinter from St. Joseph’s BV Kegalle, Rumeshika Rathnayake, and Himasha Eashan from Kalutara Vidyalaya will be in action in the 100m dash. First goal of all four would be advancing towards the semifinals, which will be worked off the same day later on.
Meanwhile, C.S. Somawardana the 1500m champion will compete in his pet event, while the country’s best product in the event and record holder, Chaminda Wijekoon, will be watching him from the sidelines as he will be competing in the 5000m this time.
Even though schoolgirl Rumeshika will be competing for the first time for the National team, she already has experience in China as she represented Sri Lanka youth team at Nanjing in the Asian Youth Games two years ago. Also, Rumeshika has represented the country in the IAAF World Youth Games and South Asian Junior Athletics championship, so she is the one with more international exposure than a few of her senior members in the team. With a personal best of 11.80 seconds in the 100m, Rumeshika may be the finest product of renowned coach A.D. Nandawathie (Nanda), who will be eying to make a statement.
It’s no secret that many have started to compare her with the country’s greatest sprinter, Susanthika Jayasinghe. Even though it’s too early to make that call, her performances in the junior arena have no match in local history, where she proved it when shattering two sprinting records of Damayanthi Dharsha set 22 years ago at the Junior Nationals.
Rumeshika’s first goal would be getting into the finals of the 100m, which will be a huge achievement considering her age. While doing so she may set her eyes on an impressive personal best as a reply to the selectors who ignored the teenager for the AsianChampionship first, before Nanda appealed to the country’s highest authorities successfully for her inclusion.

Himasha Eashan, another young sprinter with ambition, will be eyeing glory in the men’s 100m dash. The sprinter from Kalutara Vidyalaya has had many ups and downs in his career, but he has vast experience in the international arena, even though this is his first major event for the senior team. Eashan represented the country in two Asian Junior Championships, while winning a bronze medal in the 100m at the last one held in 2014 at Chinese Taipei. Then he went on to USA for the IAAF World Junior Championship, and won a medal in the South Asian Junior Championship held at Ranchi, India in 2013. He then went to Lusofonia Games last year, which was his first international senior event, and won gold in the 4x100m relay, anchoring the last lap. Eashan clocked 10.46, a new personal best, at the trials held a few weeks ago, and would be facing stiff competition against the Asian Giants, even though their calibre will be too much for Eashan.
Kalinga Kumarage will be representing the country in the 400m dash for the first time, even though he has been there in Incheon at the Asian Games. Kumarage went below the 47 seconds mark when he won the trials (46.95 seconds), but will be mainly targeting the glory of 4x400m relay team, as Sri Lanka won the bronze medal of this event in the last edition.