Nilani misses medal by a whisker

Sri Lanka’s Nilani Ratnayake missed out a medal by a whisker on the third day of the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships which continued at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar today (23).

The promising athlete was well set to clinch the Bronze Medal when she collapsed soon after clearing the final hurdle in the Women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase event.

As a result, Ratnayake had to settle with the fourth-place in this gruelling event with a timing of nine minutes, 58:25 seconds.

This was quite a significant performance considering the fact that India’s favourite Parul Chaudhary was pushed to the fifth place despite reaching a personal best timing of 10 minutes 03.43s.

Meanwhile, Bahrain's Winfred Mutile Yavi powered her way to win the Gold Medal in the Women’s 3,000m steeplechase event.

Sri Lanka’s Janaka Prasad Wimalasiri and Danushka Sandaruwan qualified for the finals of the Men’s long jump event after winning their respective qualifying round events today.

In addition, Sri Lanka will also compete in the Women’s 4x400m relay heats.

Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Vornina took the Gold Medal with 6,198 points in the Women's Heptathlon event.

Swapna Barman of India won the Silver Medal with a combined score of 5,993 points while China's Qingling Wang won the Bronze Medal with 5,289 points. (SP)