Will Himasha bring the next athletic resurgence?
18 February 2017Himasha Eshan has been the best hundred metre runner Sri Lanka has ever seen so far up to the 21st century. During 1928 the period when the distances of racers were changed from yards to metres. Until quite a while no Sri Lankan was able to go better than 11.1 secs. But since the 1950s after Navaratnam ran a 10.54, things have been improving and the mark has shifted and today Himasha has established the record at 10.26.
In the early days after getting introduced to metres this improvement happened rather quickly compared to times when the 100 metre timing was stuck in a groove at the 11 sec barrier for a long period. In those past days Sri Lanka sports had closer connections with their Indian counterparts and athletics took the place of pride. By 1948 Sri Lanka already had won Olympic silver for track events and India had not.
Up to the 1960s Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, was rejoiced by the fact of winning that Olympic medal. Athletics was improving, especially, at the school level with coaches like Anthony Abeysekara in the forefront producing some great schoolboy athletes at St. Joseph's College Colombo. He was there to help others who needed attention and was prompt to rush to attend to their needs.
By then we had the great Ethirveerasingham a schoolboy high jumper doing close to 2 metres. 17-year-old Adolf Silva doing 6.4 m in the long jump: These are just two cases of one senior and one junior athlete who were then classed as future stars. There were many more but there not being a future in sports they opted either to concentrate on studies or get into employment as soon as they leave school.
By the 1970s Sri Lanka had proved beyond doubt they were a force to reckon with winning the short distant relays and the dashes especially 400 and 200 metre. This was a possibility due to our closeness to Indian champs such as Milka Singh and Makhan Singh. Wimaladasa 400 m, Rosa distance runner were Asian champions who also contributed heavily towards Sri Lanka being a respected athletics force. Then in the nineties there was Sugath Tillakaratne who ran the 400 in a time of 44.6 to get the Asian Games gold in a record time. Even medalling at the Commonwealth Games and running in the heats of the Olympics.
From these quite encouraging backgrounds there were the emerging performers of the class of Susanthika Jayasinghe who came from a difficult background but had talent that was picked soon enough for her to be a champion athlete locally. Having broken into the Asian circuit around mid-1990s and later come on top of the events with record breaking times she was set for bigger things. Her own initiative paved the way for her to go overseas for training on the invitation of the great Ethirveerasingham to train in the USA and got hold of one of best coaches to train under.
While these were taking part there were others like Dharsha who also became an Asian record holder in the women's 400 and 200 and Sriyani Kulawansa one of best women athletes Sri Lanka has seen, running the 100 m hurdles one of the most difficult disciplines in 12.91 to be an Asian champion.
In the case of Himasha, who has the potential to represent his own country unlike such men as Femi from Africa now representing Qatar and were able to win the Asian game. Being an Asian champion competing against men and women from China, Japan and South Korea is an achievement and let us wish this young man who has been given the chance to train with the best of trainers in the world the best to come up with super running the 100 m dash and overcome the 10 sec barrier. Himasha thinks he can and his local coach knows that he will run it in 10 secs. Let us wish this will be the beginning of another resurgence of athletics in Sri Lanka.
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