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Dhammika Ratnaweera
Ushan Thiwanka in action
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Ushan Thiwanka, the Sri Lankan high-jumper based in the USA once again came to the limelight when he clinched gold clearing a height of 2.20m in the Men’s High Jump event at the Lone Star Conference’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday.
The 24-year-old champion high jumper, already selected for both Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, representing Texas, topped the ranking beating Justin Lewis (2.11m) and Dakari Hill (2.08m) to clinch the gold.
“In fact Ushan Thiwanka is getting much improvement and his performance is really well and he is in good form before the Commonwealth Games”, said National Athletic coach Y.K Kularatne. He is in medal winning standard said the National coach Kularatne .
The former Maris Stella Negombo athlete, Ushan Thiwanka, is the present national record holder in men’s high jump with a height of 2.30m. He is the first and only Sri Lankan jumper to raise the bar to 2.30m with the previous best has been 2.27m, set by Manjula Kumara Wijesekera. Manjula Kumara, a product of Dikwella Vijitrha Central held the national high jump record for nearly two decades before. Ushan Thiwanka grabbed the honors clearing 2.28m in 2021. Ushan four months later improved it to 2.30m. However he unfortunately missed to qualify for the last Tokyo Olympic Games and missed a few inches to reach the qualifying stand.
Ushan Thiwanka is in good form while renewing the Sri Lankan Indoor High Jump record last February. His indoor record stands at 2.27m. Sri Lanka Athletics (SLA) tried to send Thiwanka for more International events during the last year to improve his ranking to give Olympic qualification but due to Covid 19 it was not successful.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022 – 01:00
