Priyangika Madumanthi and Shehan Ambepitiya gave immense hopes and future prospects in an otherwise disappointing year that was marred by the tragic demise of the country’s athletic officials and tainted by two doping incidents.

Madumanthi gave a glimpse of hope to Sri Lanka women’s high jumpers taking the National record to new heights and reaching a position from where she could eye Olympic qualifying standards.

She took the bar from 1.76m in 2006 to an once-thought impossible level of 1.85m by March this year while breaking the record six times during the period and improving the record twice this year. Marrying to her long time boyfriend, Madumanthi left questions whether she could commit herself fully to her sports. However she was quoted as saying that her marriage would only benefit her future sporting endeavours.

It was a fantastic year for the country’s athletic prodigy Shehan Ambepitiya who went from strength to strength. He became the country’s first youth athlete to run in a world championship final when he ran in the 100m final of the World Youth Championships in Poland. He finished seventh there but later won a Gold triple at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India, establishing records in almost all events.

Apart from them, the other notable performances came from Sri Lanka Navy sailor K. H. K. Gunathilaka and 19-year-old Nimali Liyanarachchi who established new Sri Lanka records in men’s javelin and women’s steeplechase respectively.

Controversial sprinter Jani Chathurangani had to face the fate that awaits all drug cheats in athletics. After being given a lifeline by a committee headed by Wijedasa Rajapakse who cleared her of alleged drug charges in the 2006 SA Games, the sprinter was found guilty by a Court of Arbitration for Sports in Geneva and was banned for two years. The SA Games Gold medallist was ordered to hand over all her medals won during the period starting from 2006.

Just four months after Jani’s episode, another doping incident tainted Sri Lanka’s sports image. South Asian Athletic Championship Gold medallist Premila Priyadharshani was found positive for a prohibited substance, Terbutaline which is a Therapeutic Use Exemption drug. She was found positive for the prohibited substance when she was tested at a local competition. She was imposed a six months suspension effective from August, 2008.

K. A. Karunaratne, Lakshman de Alwis and a host of athletic officials and a number of future marathon runners met tragic death at Weliweriya leaving the entire athletic fraternity here in utter grief. A dastardly terrorist attack believed to have targeted Government Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, who was there to flag off the marathon in the morning, killed at least 15 and left many athletes with career threatening injuries. The terrorist attack was condemned by the IAAF, world’s athletic governing body, and a countless number of international and national leaders. The tragedy sent shockwaves across the athletic establishment to the grass root levels. Young, school going athletes from Polonnaruwa and Rambukkana were among the dead and the school children weeping for their lost ones in those remote areas was a sorrowful experience.

‘Marathon Karu’ who ran in the Olympic marathon was to start a series of marathons to promote the event here and the project titled ‘Siri Lak Dahas Gaw Dura’ received a really deadly blow with his unexpected demise.

Sri Lanka’s 4x400m relay team failed to qualify for Olympics as they failed in the last possible qualifying event in the Asian Grand Prix in Thailand in June. After competing in Sydney, Sri Lanka could not field a 400m team and the leading sprinters Sugatha Thilakaratne and Rohan Pradeep Kumara were not available for the event. Then it fell on Prasanna Amarasekara to take Sri Lanka’s hopes of qualifying for the mega event but Sri Lanka were far from achieving that standard.

Making a comeback to the field after a long struggle, Thilakaratne, who was nursing an injury, announced his retirement from athletics this year. What became of the other two leading 400m runners, who were to take his place were a stark contrast to Thilakaratne.

Kumara was found guilty of using a forged credit card and was given a two-year suspended imprisonment for five years while Amarasekara is being tried in courts for an alleged human smuggling mastermind by a former national athlete.

Sri Lanka’s celebrated women sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe ran in her last Olympics in Beijing and she was quoted as saying that her farewell was imminent.

Along with Jayasinghe, Nadeeka Lakmali was the only other athlete to represent the country at the Beijing event. And, it was for the first time since 1984 Los Angeles games that Sri Lanka couldn’t field a male athlete for the event. In the past six decades Sri Lanka has fielded at least a single male athlete for the event except in the 1976 Montreal and 1984 Los Angeles games.

Sri Lanka’s last chance in fielding a male athlete hung on Manjula Kumara (who represented the country in Athens Games), whose last ditch attempt to earn qualifying standards didn’t materialise as he only managed to clear a height of just 2.18m at Sugathadasa Stadium at the Nationals (11cms lower than the qualifying standard) on his return from USA.

If not for Ambepitiya’s impressive performances at the junior international events, Sri Lankan athletic officials could have only turned to the massive stadium, now being built in Diyagama, to save their face when the World Athletic Chief Lamine Diack made a historic visit to Sri Lanka.