Kumarage returns from ban to win 200m national title
Former Sri Lanka sprinter Kalinga Kumarage made a spectacular return to the sport after two years of battling a doping ban when he won the 200 metre title on the opening day of the 98th National Athletic Championship at the Sugathadasa Stadium yesterday.
A promising 400m runner, who won a silver medal at the 2016 South Asian Games in Guwahati, India, the 28-yearold Army athlete is reinventing himself in the 200 metres scorching the track with a blistering run of 20.79 seconds.
Kumarage was exonerated of all charges after the Sri Lanka Anti-Doping Agency (SLADA) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) failed to establish that there were banned substances in his body or that he violated anti-doping rules, having served a temporary ban after being tested positive for a banned substance at the 55th Army Meet last year.
He has been an integral member of the Sri Lanka relay team in the 400m event which finished fourth in the 2018
Jakarta Asian Games.
The Athletic Nationals was held for the first time without spectators after Sri Lanka Athletics (SLA) had to limit the participants to ensure they adhered to the Health Ministry’s protocol, where the list of athletes eligible to compete was selected based on their 2019 performance and on appeals considered reasonable.
All eyes were Nilani Rathnayaka who is close to Olympic qualification in the
3,000m Steeplechase but taking part in her first competition in more than a year, she won the title in 10 minutes 15.86 seconds which is well below her personal best of 9:46.76. She has 1180 with a World Athletics ranking of 35 in the event for which 45 top athletes would be eligible to qualify for Tokyo.
S.L. Sarangi Silva of Army set a national record in the women’s long jump of 6.33 metres. The championship will continue until December 29.