Sri Lanka face bitterly realistic possibility of ending up this year’s Asian Games without at least a single medal as many of her medal prospects, especially in athletics, failed to live up to expectations by Sunday, 26 August at the 18th Asian Games, now taking place in Indonesia. The event will be over on Sunday, 2 September. Sri Lanka’s woes in track and field events continued on Sunday as long jumper Janaka Prasad, with jump of 7.86m, and sprinter Kalinga Kumara, with a personal best timing of 45.99 seconds in men’s 400m, had to settle for seventh and eighth places respectively, losing all hopes a podium finish in their finals in Jakarta. In the last 17 editions in this mega regional sporting event, which originated in 1951 in India, it is only thrice that Lanka has failed to win at least a single medal. Out of the total number of 46 medals Sri Lanka has won in the Asian Games so far since 1951, 27 have been in athletics. (See Tables below) Among the leading athletes who have brought medals in athletics for Sri Lanka (named Ceylon until the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games) include Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Nirmala Dissanayake, Lucien Rosa, W. Wimaladasa, Sunil Gunawardene, Kosala Sahabandu, Sriyantha Dissanayake, Susanthika Jayasinghe, Damayanthi Dharsha, Sugath Tillakaratne, Sriyani Kulawansa and Rohan Pradeep Kumara   Games                                                      Gold      Silver    Bronze  Total   Rank India 1951 New Delhi                                      0              1              0              1              6 Philippines 1954 Manila                                 0              1              1              2              10 Japan 1958 Tokyo                                             1              0              1              2              11 Indonesia 1962 Jakarta                                  0              2              3              5              11 Thailand 1966 Bangkok                                  0              0              6              6              15 Thailand 1970 Bangkok                                  2              2              0              4              10 Iran 1974 Tehran                                              2              0              0              2              12 Thailand 1978 Bangkok                                  0              0              2              2              18 India 1982 New Delhi                                      0              0              0              0              0 South Korea 1986 Seoul                                  0              0              0              0              0 China 1990 Beijing                                            0              2              1              3              18 Japan 1994 Hiroshima                                     0              1              1              2              26 Thailand 1998 Bangkok                                   3              0              3              6              15 South Korea 2002 Busan                                2              1              3              6              21 Qatar 2006 Doha                                               0              1              2              3              36 China 2010 Guangzhou                                     0              0              0              0              0 South Korea 2014 Incheon                               1              0              1              2              27 Total                                                                 11           11           24           46           26     Asian Games Medals by SL by Sport

Sport	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Athletics	10	6	11	27
Cricket	1	0	1	2
Golf	0	2	0	2
Boxing	0	1	4	5
Tennis	0	1	4	5
Sailing	0	1	1	2
Cycling	0	0	2	2
Karate	0	0	1	1
Total	11	11	24	46

  * The above file picture shows Sri Lanka’s Susanthika Jayasinghe (L) finishing in the second-place behind Uzbekistan’s Guzel Khubbieva (R) in women’s 100m dash at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.