Benedictine athletes continued their superb form this season, coming up with a brilliant performance once again at the Sir John Tarbat Schools Senior Athletic Championship held at the Diyagama Stadium from 8-11 September.
Despite missing a few athletes due to injury and illness, the Benedictines emerged close overall Runners-Up to the eventual winners, Maris Stella College, Thimbirigaskatuwa.
Lyceum International School were placed third, St. Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa fourth, and Maris Stella College, Negombo fifth.
The lads from Kotahena were also crowned Under 20 Champions, Track Events Champions, Relay Champions, and Under 18 Runners-Up.
The top performer among the Benedictines was Sri Lanka junior athlete Sasindu Jayasinghe, who set a new meet record in the Under 18 triple jump with a leap of 15.41 m. He 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 110 m hurdles with a time of 14.31 seconds and ran impressively in the 4x100 m relay.
Among others, the Jayamanne twins Kalana and Kavindu (Under 20), Y. Thulastigan (Under 16 – Silver in putt shot and Bronze in discus throw), Umal Perera (Under 16 – fourth in 200 m and Silver in 4x400 m relay), and Senesh Gamage (Under 18 – Bronze in triple jump and long jump, and Silver in 4x100 m and 4x400 m relays) stood out.
Kudos should also go to other members of the relay teams in all three age segments, which helped the team to become Relay Champions.
The Benedictine coaching and support staff was led by mercurial Nuwan Abeywickrema, who returned to the country the day before the meet started, after participating as the only Sri Lankan coach in the Kids’ Athletics ‘Train the Trainer’ course organised by World Athletics in Thailand.
The excellent leadership, commitment, and hard work of the coaching and support staff has resulted in the consistent performances of the Benedictines this year. They had previously clinched the Colombo North, Colombo Zonal, Western Province, and All-Island Ritzbury Schools Relay Championships.