Hiruni fails to finish World Half Marathon in Poland
Hiruni Wijayaratne dropped out after the 15km mark, as her 'body was not ready for the race' - File pic
US-based woman marathoner Hiruni Wijayaratne made a disappointing appearance at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships Gydnia 2020 in Poland on Saturday as she pulled out after completing the 15km mark.
The 29-year-old Sri Lankan born runner clocked 17.50 minutes at the end of the first 5km mark and 37.19 at the end of the 10km mark. She had finished the 15km mark with a time of 57.28 but did not survive to complete the 21.0975km race.
Having arrived in Gdynia after a tiring 30-hour journey from Colorado via Chicago and Denmark, she was feeling the pinch of long travel and believes it may have taken a toll in her performance.
“My body did not feel ready to race,” she said via a Whatsapp message soon after the race. “I was training and ready to do a personal best but it wasn’t meant to be today.”
Hiruni was expecting to run under 1 hour 12 minutes but it wasn’t to be her day. Her half marathon personal best of 1:14.28 came in January 2019 in Houston, Texas.
“If I finished, I would have run my slowest half marathon. I didn’t want such a poor result next to my name or the name of my country. So I decided it’s best not to finish,” she added.
A South Asian Games gold medallist, Hiruni holds four Sri Lanka records in the 10,000m, 5,000m, Marathon and Half Marathon. She also represented Sri Lanka at the 2017 World Championship, 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2019 World Championship in the Marathon and also ran the 10,000m during the 2018 Asian Games.
On what was a cold, breezy morning alongside the Baltic Sea in Poland, Peres Jepchirhir powered her way to gold in 1:05.16, a world record in a women-only race.
She led home Germany’s Melat Yisak Kejeta, who smashed the European women-only record to take silver in 1:05.18, with Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw a close third in 1:05.19.