• Bags three gold, two silver and three bronze medals

The Sri Lankan athletics team managed to win the fourth place in the overall medal tally of the 25th Asian Athletics Championship held in Bangkok, Thailand, setting the record for the highest number of medals won by Sri Lanka in the history of the Asian Athletics Championships.

Yesterday’s (16) achievements also stand as the best performance by Sri Lanka at the Asian Athletics Championships to date.

Sri Lankan track and field performed well, winning 3 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 3 bronze medals. In this year's tournament, Sri Lanka has set two Asian tournament records, while five Sri Lankan records were broken.

Tharushi Karunaratne managed to create a new Asian championship record and a new Sri Lankan record in the women's 800m event yesterday (16th), winning gold.

Tharushi finished the event in 2.00.66 minutes, 0.86 seconds slower than the direct World Championship qualifying time of 1.59.80 minutes in the event. With this record, Tharushi broke the previous record of 2.01.16 minutes set by Zhang Jing of China at the 1998 Asian Championship held in Fukuoka, Japan.

It is a feat that a Sri Lankan athlete has broken a championship record in an Asian athletics championship after 21 years. The silver medal in the event went to Indian athlete Chanda who recorded a time of 2.01.58 minutes. The bronze medal in the event was won by experienced Sri Lankan athlete Gayanthika Kumari who finished the event with a time of 2.03.25 minutes. In this event, she helped Tharushi reach the record.

Tharushi's performance has advanced her to the 56th place in the qualification ranking of the women's 800m event of the World Championship to be held in Budapest, Hungary in August, and as the Asian champion, she is now ahead of the qualification chart of the World Championship (provisional qualified as area champ).

In the men's 4x400m relay event, the Sri Lankan athletes managed to renew the Sri Lankan record with a new Asian Games record, winning the gold medal with a time of 3.01.56 minutes. The team included Aruna Darshan, Rajitha Rajakaruna, Pabasara Niku and Kalinga Kumarage. There, Sri Lanka's renewal of the 23-year-old national record stood out.

Yesterday (16) the Sri Lankan athletes also managed to surpass the current Sri Lankan record in the women's 4x400m event, winning the silver medal with a time of 3.33.27 minutes. The previous record of 3.35.06 minutes set by Nadeesha Ramanayake, Dilshi Kumarasinghe, Upamalika Ratnakumari and Nimali Liyanarachchi in Doha in 2019, was broken.

With the time recorded yesterday by the Sri Lankan men's 4x400m team, they are able to advance to the 12th position (16 qualified) in the World Championships in Athletics in Budapest, Hungary. The women's 4x400m team has advanced to the 27th position in the respective qualifying rankings.

Fellow Sri Lankan athlete, Javelin thrower Nadeesha Lekhamge won a bronze medal and created a new Sri Lankan record of 60.93 meters.