WATCH: Parami wins Youth Olympic bronze, creates history

By www.ceylonathletics.com | October 15, 2018 | Results, Top Stories

Youth Star Parami Wasanthi Marisstella created history when she produced the first Youth Olympic Medal for Sri Lanka by winning the Bronze Medal in the 2000m Steeplechase in Buenos Aires, Argentina short while ago.

Parami, the Asian Junior Gold Medalist, finished third in the 2000M Steeplechase earlier with a personal best time of 6 minutes 33.06 seconds in the event. Parami then finished 4^th among steeplechase runners and 17^th overall in the 4km cross country event held at 7.00 p.m. SL time yesterday, clocking 13 minutes and 47 seconds to clinch the Bronze Medal according to points.

As per the rules of the Youth Olympic Games, every athlete has to compete twice in their event, and the performance in both events will be considered for medals. Athletes who compete in events above a distance of 800M had to compete in a 4km cross country race.

The Gold medal was won by Kenya’s Fancy Cherono with Eithopia’s Mekdes Abebe winning the Silver.

Trained under Janitha Jayasinghe, Parami from Kuliyapitiya CC, earlier won the 3000m steeplechase Asian Junior Gold Medal despite being just 17 years of age. Daughter of a fisherman, Parami grew up watching her elder sister Dilhani Fernando winning several medals for Sri Lanka at international youth and junior competitions, which prompted her to take up athletics.

Parami is a rare talent. She has already represented Sri Lanka in two sports, as she was part of the Under-16 women’s rugby team apart from being a star youth athlete.

She was ranked third from the World when she went to the event and as predicted She did achieve the medal . Athletics Association had taken measure to educate the coach Jayasinghe more as they have already prepared a foreign training for him just as he returned.

Heartbreak for Seniru

Earlier, High Jumper Seniru Amarasinghe too excelled, but finished just outside the podium in fourth place.Competing in the second stage of the high jump, the 17- year old Royalist equaled his personal best of 2.14m and finished fourth overall, which can be categorized as the best achievement by a Sri Lankan male athlete this year across any level.

Trained under the expert guidance of Cuban coach Luis Miranda, who is also coaching Olympian Manjula Kumara Wijesekara, Seniru showed great maturity to clear 2.14m and tie for third place with Oleh Doroshchuk of Ukraine. However, Oleh had cleared 2.09m in the first stage while Seniru managed only 2.05m in cold weather.

Results

2000M St.Ch -6:33.06 PB (3rd Overall)
4KM Cross Country – 13:47 min (4th Overall)