Sri Lankan Sprinter Claims Olympic Medal

Susanthika’s bronze becomes silver later

To be best known by the epithet of ‘Asian Black Mare,’ one needs to have run very fast on many occasions. But there’s much more than speed as being the clinching factor in the claim to fame of Sri Lankan sprint queen Deshabandu Susanthika Jayasinghe.

For one, she was the only Asian athlete to have won an Olympic medal for sprinting.

And for another, Susanthika was once the first Sri Lankan to bag a medal at the World Athletics Championships, which – being organised by World Athletics, formerly the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – represents the highest level of competition alongside the Olympics in senior international track and field events conducted outdoors.

Being a specialist in the 100 and 200 metres events, it came as no surprise to anyone that it was as a sprinter that Jayasinghe would cover her homeland in glory one day.

That day came at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney where Susanthika finished behind American Marion Jones and Bahamian Pauline Davis-Thompson to bag the bronze medal.

She had previously qualified to participate at the Summer Games in Australia after winning the 100 metres event at the National Athletics Championships in Sri Lanka, following a two year hiatus from training due to a hamstring injury.

Seven years later, Jones confessed to having taken performance enhancing drugs prior to the Olympics. And when Davis-Thompson was awarded the gold medal, Jayasinghe took silver.

It was the achievement of a lifetime for a sprinter who had been demonstrating her remarkable turn of speed since long before her maiden showing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, aged 20.

In 1995, she won gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres sprint events at the South Asian Games. She also attracted attention with twin silvers in the Australian and Taipei Open Championships the same year. And Susanthika had first shot to prominence a year before when she won gold (200m) and silver (100m) at the 1994 Asian Junior Championships in Jakarta.

Her 2000 silver stood for 21 years for this three time Sri Lankan Olympian (1996, 2000 and 2008) as the only Games medal for a South Asian in athletics.

That day came at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney where Susanthika finished behind American Marion Jones and Bahamian Pauline Davis-Thompson to bag the bronze medal