Ayomal breaks 26-year-old Sri Lankan record

Sri Lankan rising star Ayomal Akalanka has broken a 26-year-old Sri Lankan national record at an athletics championship in China.

The young athlete, who participated in the men’s 400m hurdles event at the inaugural Asian Under-23 Athletics Championships in Ordos, China, won the silver medal with a time of 49.03 seconds.

With this feat, the old national record of 49.44 seconds, set by Harijan Ratnayake two decades ago, on 31 August 2000, at the Asian Athletics Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, was added to history.

Trained under veteran coach Anura Bandara, Akalanka achieved this feat by taking a significant lead of 0.41 seconds over the old record.

With this outstanding feat, he currently holds the national records in all three categories of Sri Lankan youth, junior and senior, which is a unique achievement by an individual athlete.

Also, this silver medal marks a milestone in the history of athletics in this country as it is the first medal won by Sri Lanka at an Asian U23 Athletics Championship.

Earlier, Akalanka had become the first Sri Lankan junior athlete to finish the 400m hurdles in under 50 seconds at the All-Ceylon School Games, recording a time of 49.90 seconds.