Appuhamy and Madurika grab Race Walking titles
Sampath Niroshan Appuhamy and Kalhari Madurika of the Western Province came up with encouraging performances to end-up winners of the Race Walking event of the 43rd National Sports Festival held at Thalawathugoda, yesterday.
Appuhamy who finished the event with a timing of 1 hr 40:06mts beat last year’s winner Sandaruwan Dunukara of North Central Province as he clocked 1hr 42:12mts. Incidentally at the last year’s event Appuhamy only managed to take the third place.
The women’s event was won by last year’s runner-up Kalhari Madurika who finished the twenty km course in 1hr 48:36mts. In an interesting reversal, last year’s winner Dinusha Dilhani who finished with a timing of 1hr 56:17mts was placed second.
The respective team events went to North Western Province (men) and Southern Province (women).
However the downside of the happening is that this year there was a sharp decline in the number of participants. Generally there are at least 90 men and 54 women at the starter’s line, but, this year the count was only 54 men and 28 women. However according sources the decline is attributed to weather vagaries experienced recently.
Since the event started way back in 1998, M.D.N. Nayanananda (men) has won the event on ten occasions while G. Geethanandani (women) has won the event on nine occasions.
Niroshan Appuhamy (42) and Kalhari Madurika (125) leading the way at the Men's and Women's Race Walking event - Pix by Amila Gamage