Sri Lanka Army’s Ajith Ratnayake, who was on his debut overseas marathon, finished below two hours and 34 minutes to be among the first 25 athletes to cross the finish line in the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon. The Full Marathon of the Singapore Marathon was taken part by over 15,000 athletes.

Speaking after the race, Ratnayake said that he felt a severe pain below the chest but endured the pain to finish. "I got a severe pain, but I didn’t want to return home without accomplishing my task," said the athlete who got the best use of his foreign exposure.

"Although it doesn’t look a difficult route the heat was such that at times I thought I would not be able to make it to the end," he said.

Meanwhile, his coach Major Lal Jayasekara said that the athlete has shown a lot of promise by completing the marathon. "He has shown a lot of promise by finishing among the elite athletes. I think he will be a good prospect for the future," said Jayasekara, who was otherwise a disappointed man after seeing Harshamali Gunarathe the fourth Sri Lankan to take part in the marathon failing to make amends for her last year’s disappointments.

Harshamali Gunaratne, running without shoes along a largely concrete route, took more than four and half hours to finish the event. She said that she had to stop twice to get relived of a stomach ache. "I had to stop twice because of a stomach ache and due to that I lost on time," said the athlete after the finish.