High Jumper Manjula Kumara won Sri Lanka’s only gold medal so far at the championship when he beat the host nation’s Huang Haiqiang in a close fight in the men’s high jump on the penultimate day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Guangdong Olympic Stadium in Guangzhou, China on Friday (13).

Kumara cleared the bar at 2.23 metres to win the gold.
University of Southern California (USC) student Manjula Kumara Wijesekera (25) representing Sri Lanka bagged the first gold medal for his country at the Asian Games in China.

Wijesekera brought home for Sri Lanka the gold medal for high jump winning the event by achieving a height of 2.23 m allowing China’s Huang Haiqiang to grab the silver and Kazakhstant’s Vitaliy Tsykunov to take the bronze.

The USA based athlete ended a gold medal drought for Sri Lanka after its athletes failed to win a single gold medal during the first three days. Apart from Manjula, the only other athlete to win a medal was team captain Chaminda Wijekoon.

Wijekoon won the silver medal in the men’s 1500 metres on the second day of the championship.

Meanwhile, Chandika Subashini was placed sixth in the women’s 200 metres in a time of 24.21 seconds.