Hiruni gearing up for Olympic Marathon dream- shatters 5000m National record

Hiruni opted to run with her road running shoes instead of spikes, where she clocked 16 minutes 17.51 seconds to finish 15th and shatter the National record set by Nilani Rathnayaka of 16 minutes 17.82 seconds last year at the Army Athletics Championship.

The South Asian Games Gold medalist, record holder and two time World Championship participant was extremely happy about her increased pace, as she said the 5000m is her most difficult event. Hiruni is keeping her fingers crossed for more opportunities to keep herself going and reach her goal of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympic Games, despite having to face a number of difficulties such as toughening of qualifying standards and Covid-19, which forced all athletes to change their preparation and plans.

Array of National Records

This was the newest addition to her array of National records. She holds many national records over several distances. Mainly she holds records in the Marathon, Half Marathon,10000m and 5000m. Other than that she is also the National record holder in the 5km, 10km, 15km, 20km, 25km and 30km road races.

“Well, I have a big goal to achieve soon,” said Hiruni. “Going to keep my eyes and ears open for maybe a 10.000m race on the track. From September first I can qualify via a marathon to the Tokyo Olympics. So that’s the main target I’m still following,” added Hiruni, with high hopes as World Athletics will resume Olympic qualification period from 1 September instead of 1 December for Marathon and race walking events.

The 29-year-old said she got a chance to work on her weaknesses during the pandemic, and the increased speed will come in handy when she switches to her main event, the Marathon.

“This pandemic helped me to get some extra time to prepare and improve in areas I am not naturally strong in – like speed. So yes, I think my chance to run the difficult standard of 2:29 is much more realistic now. During the pandemic when I was not able to run due to curfew I did everything I could at home to maintain my fitness. I think that was the number one thing for me,” said Hiruni replying to a query by Ceylon Today following the race.

Funding from own pocket

Despite living in USA, Hiruni has a daily struggle to keep the Lion Flag flying with minimum support from the country’s authorities. Hiruni does not have the luxury of focusing just on athletics, a luxury many SL athletes enjoy within Sri Lanka as their jobs with the Armed Forces allows them to stay at home, at an athletics hostel or their official residence given by the Forces, and focus just on athletics with free coaching, physiotherapists and ground facilities.

In Hiruni’s case, she has to earn her living in the States, where she attends to her job during the day while squeezing in practices between the morning and evening. She is still focused on representing Sri Lanka in the international arena, including city marathons and other competitions to qualify for major Games and Olympics, bearing all costs herself.

To top that, she is tasked with a tougher qualifying standard and lack of competition. For the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, the qualification time for the women’s marathon was 2 hours and 45 minutes, but for 2020 Tokyo Olympics the direct qualification time has been brought down by 15.30 minutes and the new standard is 2 hours, 29 minutes 30 seconds, which almost made marathoners cry. Hiruni was targeting to run the Düsseldorf Marathon in Germany to achieve the Olympic qualification, the same marathon where she ran a personal best of 2 hours 34 minutes and 10 seconds last year, which was a new Sri Lanka as well as South Asian record. By 2016 standards she would have easily made the direct qualification cut, but now she needs to run within 2 hours 29 minutes and 30 seconds to make the cut.

Hiruni missed out on the 2016 Rio Olympic Games qualification despite running a better time than the qualification time, as she achieved this time outside the period of eligibility to qualify for the Games. Thereafter, she has vastly improved herself as a marathoner as well as a distance runner, qualifying for the 2017 as well as 2019 World Championship, while being the only Asian female athlete to finish the Marathon at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Thereafter, Hiruni represented Sri Lanka at the Asian Games in Indonesia running the 10000m track event.

Last year she came down to Sri Lanka to compete in the National Championship for the first time, and won both the 10000m and 5000m, and since she was the South Asian record holder in the marathon, she had the opportunity to represent Sri Lanka in all three events, but later sacrificed the 5000m to pave the way for Nilani Rathnayaka to compete in SAG 2019.

During SAG she won the Gold medal in Marathon, becoming first Sri Lankan female athlete to win the race. Though her plans were messed up during the pandemic she was able to maintain her focus and keep training. She had the luxury of having her Venezuelan husband Louis Orta, (who competed in the marathon at the 2016 Rio Olympics), to keep pushing both of them through training and home workout sessions for months without competition. “Düsseldorf Marathon 2021 is my last chance. I want to try at least once this year for 2:29:30,” said Hiruni with the prime target on her mind.