Team SL for IAAF World Championship

Four Sri Lankan athletes have made it to the final list of the IAAF World Championship 2017 where two Marathoners Anuradha Indrajith Cooray , Hiruni Wijayarathne , 800m runner Nimali Liyanarachchi and Javelin Thrower Waruna Lakshan made the cut. The qualification period ended on 23 July at midnight.

This is the first time that Sri Lankan javelin Thrower and 800m female runner qualified for the IAAF World Championship and this is first time since 2013 that Sri Lanka competes in four athletics disciplines in world event.

Two marathoners living overseas, Anuradha Indrajith Cooray (London) and Hiruni Wijayratne (USA) have qualified for the World event by achieving the required qualification standards, while 800m runner Nimali Liyanarachchi qualified as the continental winner at the Asian Championship. Javelin thrower Dayaratne threw 82.19m at the National Trials in April and is ranked No.35 by IAAF. Since there are six German athletes in the list of 35 and IAAF has a rule of selecting only three athletes per country, Waruna drops down to No.32 in the list.IAAF selectes the world’s top 32 javelin throwers for the World Championship and Waruna was fortunate to  be included in the list.

Cooray the Sri Lanka record holder of the marathon achieved qualification standard at the Rio Olympic Games 2016 where he clocked 2:17.06 whereas the qualification time was 2:18.00. This will be his third IAAF World Championship. He represented the country in the 2005 and 2015 editions.

Hiruni the US based marathon runner who just failed to get the cut in the 2015 edition and 2016 Rio Olympics, finally achieved her dream when she won the Eugene Marathon earlier this year in 2:43.31 to qualify. Hiruni is the second fastest female marathoner in SL history behind Olympian Niluka Rajasekara who clocked 2:40.07 seconds in early 2015. However, Niluka could not make the cut for the World event this year even though she represented Sri Lanka at the 2015 World championship and 2016 Rio Olympic Games.