Sri Lankan javelin thrower Rumesh Tharanga won the men’s javelin event at the Ostrava Golden Spike athletics meeting in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, securing first place with a best throw of 86.57 metres.
The 23-year-old beat a strong international field at the continental tour gold-level meeting, adding another major title to a breakthrough 2026 season. The victory comes less than two weeks after he produced a world-leading 92.62 metres at the Diamond League meeting in Rome, a result that lifted him to eighth on the world all-time list and made him the second-best Asian javelin thrower in history.
Tharanga had played down expectations of another huge throw ahead of the Ostrava outing, telling The Island in a pre-event interview that he was “not prepared for a big throw” and that he and his coaching team were “still not set for peak performances.” The 86.57m winning mark was nonetheless enough to see off the field on Tuesday and capped a tightly-paced international run that included silver at the Rabat Diamond League with 85.97m on June 1.
The Ostrava result, his second straight win after Rome, sustains the momentum of a season in which Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla last week named him as the new measuring stick for Neeraj Chopra’s training group in Asia. Tharanga had lined up at Ostrava in a renewed rivalry with Grenada’s two-time world champion Anderson Peters, who had finished behind him in Rome.
NewsFirst, reporting on the result the morning after, called it a “historic moment for Sri Lankan athletics,” noting that no athlete from the country had previously claimed a title at the Golden Spike meet, one of Europe’s most respected athletics events. The 65th edition of the meet attracted some of the world’s top track and field athletes.
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