Sri Lankan sprinter Yupun Abeykoon won Bronze in the Men’s 100m at the Commonwealth Games on Wednesday, clocking a time of 10.14 seconds.
The first Asian to win a Commonwealth Games medal in the event, Abeykoon was only .01 seconds behind Olympic Games finalist Akani Simbine of South Africa who took Silver.
Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya won Gold with a time of 10.02 secs.
Abeykoon is the first Sri Lankan in 24 years to win a Commonwealth Games Medal in track and field events, after Sriyani Kulawansa won Silver in the Women’s 100m Hurdles and Sugath Thilakaratne won Bronze in the Men’s 400m at the Kuala Lumpur 1998 Games.
Sri Lanka’s Palitha Bandara won Silver in the Men’s Discus Throw F42-44/61-64 Para Athletics event at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on Thursday morning.
Bandara threw for a distance of 44.20 metres, and while it was a shorter distance that most competitors in the event, a scoring system that incorporated the levels of disability of those participating in the F42-44 and F61-64 categories and calculated a relative score adjudged that Bandara had infact the second best throw.
This is the first instance Sri Lanka has won a medal for Para events at a Commonwealth Games.