Sri Lanka’s javelin thrower Rumesh Tharanga has climbed to world No. 3 in the latest World Athletics rankings with 1,324 ranking points, also overtaking India’s Neeraj Chopra to become Asia No. 1, Newswire and Ada Derana reported on Wednesday.
The position is the highest ever held by a Sri Lankan male athlete in any track and field discipline. Tharanga had been ranked world No. 5 in the previous update on June 4.
Ada Derana said the jump followed Tharanga’s Rome Diamond League win on June 6, where the 23-year-old produced a 92.62-metre throw to set a new Sri Lankan national record. The mark was the second-furthest by an Asian athlete and the eighth-best throw in world history. At Rome he beat Anderson Peters of Grenada, Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago, Thomas Rohler of Germany and Curtis Thompson of the United States.
The new ranking caps a sequence of historic results that began with Tharanga’s gold-medal 89.28-metre meet record at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi, continued through a silver at the Rabat Diamond League with 85.97 metres, and was confirmed when he broke into the world top five on June 4. The 92.62-metre Rome mark is the qualitative break that lifted him past Chopra.
World Athletics’ rolling formula rewards both peak distances and consistency across recent meets, and Tharanga’s points haul reflects a sustained block of 85-plus and 89-plus performances over the past two months. The climb sets him up as one of the most credible medal contenders for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, where Sri Lanka has never had a podium-level javelin presence.
Tharanga has also been at the centre of an Asian-rivalry frame this season, with World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon publicly noting the pressure on Chopra from the Sri Lankan thrower’s results.
