Sri Lankan javelin champion Rumesh Tharanga returned to Colombo on Saturday evening at the end of a European-Middle East campaign in which he picked up three gold medals and one silver across four marquee meets, Ada Derana reported.
Tharanga competed in Morocco, Italy, the Czech Republic and Doha during the trip, taking on much of the global javelin elite in the process. He landed at Bandaranaike International Airport at 4.54 p.m. aboard a Qatar Airways flight from Doha, and was received by his parents, relatives, senior Sports Ministry officials and Sri Lanka Air Force representatives.
The 23-year-old’s swing began with silver at the Rabat Diamond League with a throw of 85.97m, continued with a national record 92.62m to finish second in Rome, then produced a gold-medal win at the Ostrava Golden Spike with 86.57m, and closed with an 88.68m victory at the Doha Diamond League on Thursday in which he beat reigning Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra to fourth. The Doha win pushed him to the World Athletics men’s javelin No. 2 ranking on 1,333 points, trailing only Germany’s Julian Weber.
It is the most successful single international tour by a Sri Lankan track-and-field athlete in recent memory and lands Tharanga firmly inside the medal conversation for the World Athletics Championships later in the season. Sri Lanka Air Force, which counts Tharanga as a serving airman, was represented at the airport reception alongside the Sports Ministry delegation.
