As many as four athletes, three from Ratnayake Central College, Walala, and one from St. Joseph’s Balika, Kegall, earned qualifying standards to represent Sri Lanka at the IAAF World Youth Athletic Championships at the 52nd Junior National Athletic Championship concluded at the Sugathadasa Stadium yesterday.

Chanuka Nuwan Wijesinghe, Dinesh Madushan and Chanuka Jayasekara of Ratnayake College and sixteen-year-old Pabasara Senanayake of St. Joseph’s Balika, Kegalle, produced impressive performance during the last two days of the event to earn qualifying standards.

Senanayake completed the Under-18 200 meters in an impressive 25.67 seconds, just 0.03 seconds above the qualifying standards set for the IAAF Youth World Championship on Friday. In the Under-18 Boys’ 3000 meters, the 17-year-old Wijesinghe established a new meet record, clocking eight minutes and 50.94 seconds to reach the qualifying standards also on Friday. The qualifying standard set for this event is 8.56 minutes.

In an exciting Under-18 Boys’ 400 meters final yesterday, Madushan and Jayasekara shared the first and second places clocking 50.22 seconds and 50.38 seconds respectively to earn their berths for the World Youth Championship which will be held in Italy early July. The IAAF qualifying standards set for this event was 50.50 seconds.