Sumedha wins Bronze at World Military Games

Olympian Javelin Thrower Sumedha Ranasinghe won the second medal for Sri Lanka at the World Military Games 2019, when he clinched the Bronze medal with a throw of 75.35m at Wuhan, China yesterday.

Sumedha, with a personal best of 83.03m, was in good form this year, constantly throwing around the 80m mark, and could have achieved this mark and won the Silver, but a miscommunication by Sri Lankan officials did not help his cause.

Sumedha had been informed that his event, originally scheduled to be held at 9.05 a.m., was shifted to 11.00 a.m., and with many changes to the event schedule having taken place, Sumedha believed that to be the case.

But around 8.00 a.m. he was informed by Long Jumper Greshan Dhananjaya that his event was going to be held at the scheduled time, and Sumedha had to rush to the grounds and directly participate in the event without any warm-up or breakfast. Sumedha skipped the second throw after a disappointing first attempt, and managed to throw 75.35m in his third attempt which got him to Bronze medal position. His next three throws did not exceed the previous mark.

Marcin Krukowski of Poland won the Silver medal with a distance of 78.17m, a distance which Sumedha could have achieved with proper warm-up and preparation, as he has thrown a greater distance in more than five competitions this year.

The Gold medal was won by Shivpal Singh of India with a throw of 83.33m.

In other events of the day, Long Jumper Greshan Dhananjaya finished fourth with a leap of 7.81m.