Sri Lankan female sprinter Nadeesha Ramanayake was placed in the 48th position overall, after ending in eighth place with 53.63 seconds in the women’s 400m heats of the ongoing 20th World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sunday (14).

However, Ramanayake making her maiden appearance at the global gathering of athletes, failed to progress beyond the heats.

This was due to her timing being ranked in the 48th spot, based on her overall performance in the preliminary rounds and she was thus forced to head home empty-handed.

The sprinter who made it to Japan via the universality spot having failed to make the cut directly, competed in the fifth heat of 400m.

But, she was unable to reproduce her best time of 52.61 seconds which she had recorded when winning gold at the 2023 Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships.

Ramanayake from the Sri Lanka Army was the first Sri Lanka female athlete to represent the country at this event, since Chandrika Rasnayake at the 2009 edition held in Berlin, Germany.

Bahraini athlete Salwa Ed Naser who recorded 49.13 seconds was placed first in the fifth heat, while Ann Williams of Jamaica 49.59 (her personal best) and Andrea Miklos of Uruguay 50.96 seconds (her seasonal best) were placed second and third, respectively.

In the meantime, two Sri Lankan men’s javelin throwers Sumedha Ranasinghe and Rumesh Tharanga are due to compete on Wednesday (17) in their qualification round.