On the final day of the XXI Commonwealth Games Sri Lanka s Hiruni Wijeratne could not live up to expectations and had to finish her pet event the Marathon as the eleventh with a time of 2:49.38 secs. The winner Helalia Jones from Namibia clocked 2:32.40 seconds which gave her the Gold medal while Two Australians Liza Vetman 2:33.23 secs. and Jesica Trengove 2:34.09 secs.
were the silver and bronze medal winners respectively.
The Marathon which commenced at 7.45 a.m. was a disappointing one for all for athletes who competed in this event which attracted spectators of all walks of life.
Appearing under these terrific climatic conditions our local competitor for marathon had to be taken on a wheel chair as she looked so bad and she was suffering from dehydration. Hiruni with so much difficulty never wanted to give up the race and finished the event placed in the eleventh slot.
For Sri Lanka XXI Commonwealth Game in Gold Coast was the Best achieved by Lankans in past 68 years.
The best medal tally gained by Lankans in the past was only four but at Gold Coast Games our athletes came up with a good
show to increase the number of medals to six.
This was mainly due to the efforts of our Weight Lifters and Boxers who did well to bring these medals. On the opening day the wrestlers brought in the first medal a bronze for Sri Lanka. Following it the second day was another good day with a bronze and the final day of Wrestling saw a silver medal added to the total.
Two day later our boxers did well to enter the round two and continued their good work to enter the quarter final in almost every weight category.
The only woman boxer Ansha Kodituwakku who was in peak form boxed brilliantly and made her way to the quarters giving the hope of another medal but it did not happen as she had to confront world’s best female boxer M.C. Mer Kom from India and she had to bow out of the ring.
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