South Asian Gold Medallist Sarangi Silva came into the limelight when she set a new Sri Lanka long jump record with a leap of 6.44m at the International Athletics Championship in Istanbul, Turkey on Wednesday.
She was able to erase the previous record of 6.33m, which was set by N. C. D. Priyadharshani at the 2015 National Championship in Colombo.
According to National Coach Y. K. Kularatne, this achievement by Sarangi is very important at this stage for her to keep her Olympic dream alive.
The 24-year old former athlete of Sri Sumangala Balika is currently representing Sri Lanka Army at this meet together with Sheshan Dhananjaya.
Both these promising athletes were selected to train in Qatar through the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOCSL) earlier this year.
They were able to train for 30 days in Qatar and after moving to Turkey they have got the opportunity of competing at a major athletics meet.
Sarangi earlier leapt a personal best of 6.38m during the last South Asian Games (SAG) and 6.33m at the 2020 National Championships.
She was, of course, not considered for the Road to Olympics before she received her scholarship due to the lack of international competitions.
Sarangi will be able to compete at the Olympics if she can perform well in the next events and reach a high ranking or achieve the required leap of 6.82m for direct qualification.
“She has a lot of potential and I am confident that she will perform much better in the next meet if the weather does not intervene,” Kularatne told the Daily News yesterday.
Meanwhile, 24-year-old Dhananjaya was also placed first in the Men’s long jump with a leap of 7.78m at this meet.
Dhananjaya is a current national record holder in the triple jump but this time he is participating in the long jump event.
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