Abeykoon through to Men’s 100m final

Abeykoon (centre) clocked a time of 10.20 secs in the semi-final

BY Susil Premalal reporting from Birmingham  

Sri Lanka’s Yupun Abeykoon powered his way to reach the Men’s 100m final at the 22nd Commonwealth Games track and field competition continued at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, England yesterday.

The fastest athlete in South Asia finished in fourth place while competing in the third semi-final with a time of 10.20s behind Nethaneel Mitchell of England (10.13s), Jeremiah Azu of Wales (10.15s) and Benjamin Azamati of Ghana (10.18s), missing out on an automatic qualification spot for the final.

However, Abeykoon qualified as one of the fastest non-automatic qualifiers to run in the final, which was held at 2.00 a.m. this morning.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Kalinga Kumarage produced a splendid performance and qualified for the semi-finals of the Men’s 400m event .

Kumarage, who ran in heat one was placed fourth with a time of 46.53s. He was denied an automatic qualification spot by Namibian athlete Ivan Geldenhuys who dipped at the finishing line to clinch the third position by just 0.02s.
However, Kumarage managed to qualify for the semi-finals of the event as the fastest non-automatic qualifier.
The top three athletes of each heat (seven heats) progressed to the semi-final stage along with the three next fastest athletes. The semi-final of the event will be held on August 6 at 1.30 a.m. Sri Lanka time.

Anthony Cox of Jamaica won the heat with a time of 45.51s followed by Australia’s Steven Solomon (45.98s) and Namibia’s Ivan Danny 46.51s.