Benedictines shine at Senior Sir John Tarbat Athletics Championship
View(s):St. Benedict’s College athletes continued their good form this season coming up with a brilliant performance once again at the Senior Sir John Tarbat Schools Athletics Championship held at the Diyagama Stadium. Despite missing a few athletes due to injury and illness, the Benedictines emerged a very close overall runners-up to the eventual winners, Maris Stella College, Thimbirigaskatuwa. Lyceum International School was placed third, St. Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa fourth and Maris Stella College, Negombo coming in fifth place. The Benedictines were also crowned champions in the Under-20 category, Track events and Relay events, while becoming overall runners-up in the Under-18 category.
St. Benedict’s College athletes
The top performer among the Benedictines was Sri Lanka Junior athlete Sasindu Jayasinghe, who set up a new meet record in the Under-18 Triple Jump, with a leap of 15.41m. Sasindu is the son of Sanjaya Jayasinghe, who was a household name in Sri Lanka’s Triple Jump arena for nearly two decades.
The brilliant Under-20 athlete Andrew Akash won the 110m Hurdles with a time of 14.31secs and ran impressively in the 4x100m relays. Among other achievers were the Jayamanne twins — Kalana and Kavindu in the Under-20s, Y. Thulastigan (Under-16 – silver in Putt Shot and bronze in Discus Throw), Umal Perera (Under-16 – fourth in 200m and silver in 4x400m relay), Senesh Gamage (Under-18 – bronze in Triple Jump and Long Jump and silver in 4x100m and 4x400m relays) stood out. Contributions from other members of the Bens relay teams in all three age segments, also helped the team to become Relay Champions.
The Benedictine coaching and support staff is led by Nuwan Abeywickrema, who returned to the country the day before the meet started, after participating as the only Sri Lanka coach in the Kids Athletics ‘Train The Trainers’ course organised by World Athletics in Thailand. The excellent leadership, commitment and the hard work of the coaching and support staff, has resulted in the consistent performances of the Benedictines this year. They earlier won the Colombo North, Colombo Zonal, Western Province and the All-Island Ritzbury Schools Relay Championship.