Waruna pursuits London dream at Lanka Lions C’ship

Javelin Thrower Waruna Lakshan Dayaratne will try one more time to seal that elusive IAAF World Championship qualification at the Lanka Lions Athletics Championship to be held today  and tomorrow at Diyagama.

Waruna the National champion of the event threw 82.19m at the first National trials in April and went to India with a lot of hope but just as in the Asian Grand Prix series, overseas demon came to hunt him with Waruna again finishing below par at the Asian Championship in 8th place with just 76.78m throw.

He is currently in 32nd position in the World Ranking and there are six German athletes among the 32 athletes. IAAF will only select the best 32 athletes of the world for the World Championship with limitation of only three athletes for any country where Waruna has now fallen to 29th in that list.

Automatic qualification standard for the event for the world event is 83metres but only 23 athletes in the world have achieved that mark so far which speaks volumes of the toughness of the qualification standard.

Even though Diyagama has a worn out track it has been lucky charm for Waruna so far with two of his 80m plus throws came in that venue. A throw of 82.50m will ensure his passage to the World Championship.

Trained under Pradeep Nishantha, Waruna do not have him right now as Pradeep is in London with the Para World Championship team. Waruna will come to track on Sunday, the second day of Lanka Lions Athletics Championship eyeing his London dreams.