Susanthika to reside in Australia

By Susil Premalal 

Sri Lanka’s Women’s star athlete and 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Silver Medallist Susanthika Jayasingha has decided to reside in Melbourne, Australia with her two children.

She left Sri Lanka about two months ago and has told her friends that she is uncertain about returning to the country.

She has migrated to Australia with the aim of prioritising the education and future of her two children.

Susantika’s contemporary athlete, Asian medals and Olympian Damayanthi Darsha, also left Sri Lanka with her family and moved to Australia a few years ago.

49-year-old Susanthika Jayasinghe is a Sri Lankan retired sprinter, who specialised in the 100 and 200 metres. She won the Olympic silver medal for the 200m event in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the second Sri Lankan to win an Olympic medal after Duncan White and the first Asian woman to win an Olympic or World Championship medal in a sprint event.

She is also the only Asian athlete to have claimed an Olympic medal in sprint events. She is also the first and only Sri Lankan to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships. 

Her silver medal achievement at the 2000 Sydney Olympics also stood as the only Olympic medal for a South Asian in athletics event for 21 years before Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal achievement at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She is fondly nicknamed as the Asian Black Mare.

She has represented Sri Lanka at the Olympics on three occasions in 1996, 2000 and 2008. She is considered one of the most decorated sprinters in Sri Lanka. However, she is also a deemed as a controversial figure in Sri Lanka.