A height of 2.81 meters is child’s play by the standards of world No.1 Yelena Isinbayeva but by the Sri Lankan standards, it is a height only two female athletes have been successful in clearing in the pole vault, a discipline that has seen a slight improvement during the last two years thanks largely to a few enthusiastic school girls who followed it with some interest.

On Wednesday (23), a girl from Allavaddy produced a stunner when she cleared that height, a new Sri Lanka Schools Under-19 Girls’ record.

When she cleared the bar at that height to a hearty applause of some dozen athletes and officials from Jaffna, Thanuja Sanmugarasa not only broke a record but also opened the door for countless number of Jaffna girls to follow suit.

For the record, a shy Thanuja cleared that mark after failing to clear the 1.75 mark. When her closest rival H.K. Weerasinghe (silver medal) of Ratnayake Central, Walala, failed to clear the 1.7 meter height, Thanuja was the winner of the event.

Any height above that was for her to improve on her personal best. She got the bar to be raised to 1.75 mark. She failed the mark on her first attempt and surprisingly she skipped the second and third attempts and requested to raise the bar to 2.81 meters, a centimeter above the previous record (2008) held by Ann Pumali of St. Anne’s BMV, Wattala.

Then the girl from Arunothaya College cleared that height with a jump, which was described by a technical official as a jump of confidence. In deed it was a jump of confidence as Thanuja later described it to ‘Sunday Island - Sportstar.’

She said, with the help of an interpreter, that she had jumped only 2.55 meters.

"I jumped 2.55 meters at the Northern Province Schools Athletic Championship. That was my best jump," she said.

Thanuja, who said that she lived in a remote village close to Kankasanthurai, said that she cleared 1.55 meters at the Northern Province Schools Athletic Championship.

The only girl in a family of two children, Thanuja said that like many other girls in Jaffna, she too was reluctant to take up sports earlier, but was confident that many would follow suit due to her victory.

"This kind of an outfit is not familiar to us. Girls don’t wear shorts or longs. It was difficult for me earlier. But now I am happy that I did achieve something so that others too can follow suit," Thanuja said.

Thanuja won the first gold medal for Northern Province with her record breaking feat and it remained the only record to shatter until one and half days of the five-day meet and her extraordinary confidence to improve from a mere 2.55 meters to 2.81 was the main topic of discussion at the Sugathadasa Stadium until the dusk settled in at this year’s All-island Schools Athletic Championship.