Sri Lankan runners Manjula Kumarasinghe and Ishan Kumara Wijethilaka stunned the athletes of the entire South and Southeastern Asian regions as they both ran their personal bests under punishing conditions to bag the Women’s Championship of the region and the Men’s Runner-up position in the fourth and final leg of the Standard Chartered Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) Marathon series here in Hong Kong, yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s outstanding performance won their teams (Men and Women) a jackpot of over Rs. 13 million and pats on the back from fellow athletes.

Kumarasinghe created the day’s biggest upset as she took her team to victory which was though an achievement far from their reach on the eve of the marathon. She finished the grueling Hong Kong leg in a notable three hours and four seconds, her personal best to beat the Indonesian team by a stunning four seconds. Indonesia had a lead of 20 minutes over Sri Lanka before yesterday’s final leg and were the favourites to clinch the regional women’s championship.

The unemployed damsel, who couldn’t win a place in the Sri Lanka national pool when she failed to finish the National Marathon last year, proved that nothing was impossible with a determined run. Sri Lanka’s performance came in for praise from fellow regional athletes and was the talking point in media circles. The Sri Lanka women’s team was awarded a prize money of US $ 80,000.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army’s Ishan Kumara Wijethilaka clocked what the SL team Principal Jayantha Siyamudali termed as the best performance by a Sri Lankan within the last three years. Wijethilaka completed the final phase in the fashion of a seasoned short distance sprinter to clock 2.24.02 (Gun time and Chip time of 2.23.59). He lowered his previous best by two seconds. Over 55,000 athletes had registered for yesterday’s marathon of which 8,000 were full marathon runners.

Wijethilaka’s performance won him the 10th place in the full marathon and was the first in the South and Southeastern Asian region. Although the Sri Lanka men’s team had to be satisfied with the region’s runner-up position, Wijethilaka earned as many laurels as possible to compensate for that. He beat the South and Southeast Asian region’s leading Indian team member Anjud Kumar by two minutes.

The Sri Lanka Men’s team won a prize of US $ 50,000.

Kenya’s Cyprian Kiogora and Frida Kwamboka clocked 2.14.57 and 2.41.25 to win the Hong Kong marathon and in the GROE series the Kenyans were the champions once again. Both their men’s and women’s teams bagged the titles. They also won the African region championships. Apart from Kenya, Sri Lanka were the only team to have won titles in both men’s and women’s categories.