Nadeeka on show today
Sri Lanka women’s javelin throw champion, Nadeeka Lakmali will be in action today in the final round of the women’s javelin throw event at the 14th IAAF World Athletics Championship at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Lakmali, the second Lankan athlete to reach a final besides Olympic silver medalist Susanthika Jayasinghe, will be the ninth competitor among 12 finalists in action. 
In the qualifying round Lakmali covered a distance of 60.39metres to reach the finals against a bunch of world class javelin throwers. Of the list of 12, Lakmali has the least best throw but conditions in Moscow may vary helping the Lankan thrower achieve her personal best, meaning she has a great opportunity in setting a new Sri Lanka record. The existing Sri Lanka record of 60.64metres was set by Lakmali exactly a month ago at the 20th Asian Athletics Championship held in Pune, India.
By achieving that feat Lakmali bettered her own national record of 60.16metres which qualified her for the Moscow event. This season Lakmali, a Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Forces recruit, has already won three gold medals so far at international events, including a medal at the Asian Championships held in India.
Today on the closing day of the 14th IAAF World Athletics Championship, Lakmali’s event will come as the first of the nine events lined up. She will be competing against top javelin throwers Maria Abakumova, Christina Obergfoll and Sunette Viljoen. The 
trio is among the top ten’s list of all time best performers led by Barbora Spotakova of Czech Republic. Spotakova’s feat of 72.28m recorded in Stuttgart in 2008 is the existing world record in the event. One of Lakmali’s rivals Abakumova of Russia claims the all time second best throw which she achieved in Daegu in 2011 by covering a distance of 71.99metres. Medal prospects Germany’s Obergfoll’s 70.20metres stands as the fourth all time best while South African Viljoen who achieved 69.35metres in New York last year stands as the sixth all time best performance in women’s javelin throw.
If Lakmali (31) produces a performance that could give her a medal, she will again become the second Lankan athlete to win a medal in an IAAF World Athletics Championship after sprinter Jayasinghe, who won a silver and a bronze medal respectively in 1997 and 2007 in the women’s 200metre event.
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