Olympic heartbreak for Yupun and Kalinga

By Susil Premalal

Yupun Abeykoon

Kalinga Kumarage

Sri Lankan sprint athletes Yupun Abeykoon (100m Men) and Kalinga Kumarage (400m Men) once again failed to reach the 2024 Paris Olympic Qualification mark while competing at the Roma Sprint Festival in Italy and the Seiko Golden Grand Prix Meet in Japan, respectively. 
Abeykoon clocked 10.21s and was placed fourth in the Men’s 100m, with Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs clocking 10.07s to win the event.
Abeykoon is left with at least three more international events to participate in, where he could achieve the required ranking points or must run a sub-10.00s to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, Kumarage secured second place in the Men’s 400m event with a time of 45.57s but failed to achieve the Olympic Qualifying mark of 45.00s.
The first place in this event went to Kentara Sato of Japan with a time of 45.21s.
However, this was a marked improvement from Kumarage considering his previous effort, where he clocked 45.92s at the 11th Kinami Michitaka Memorial Athletic Meet in Osaka, Japan. 
No Sri Lankan athlete has so far qualified to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and the deadline for the events is June 30.
Kumarage will not participate in any international meet, and his last chance to achieve the Olympic Qualifying standard will be the 102nd National Athletic Championships 2024 from June 23 to 25 at the Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo.
The upcoming international meets for Sri Lanka’s elite athletes are:
May 27–29 in Chongqing, China: The second Belt and Road Athletics Invitation Meeting (Aruna Dharshana and Dilhani Lekamge)
June 1–2 in the Taiwan Open Championships (Aruna Dharshana, Tharushi Karunarathna, Nadeesha Ramanayake, Gayanthika Abeyrathna, and Dilhani Lekamge)
June 14–15 in Mokpo, China: Asian Throwing Championships (Dilhani Lekamge and Sumedha Ranasinghe)