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Vale of Aylesbury Athletic Club |
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| Thursday 23rd Feb 2012 |
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Cooray's Olympic Hopes
Anuradha I Cooray-Will he be on the start line of the 2012 Olympic marathon?
As most of you know, he ran in the Pune International Marathon in India recently where he finished 10th in an experienced international field in a time of 2hours, 18 minutes and 42 seconds, just 42 seconds short of the Olympic B standard of 2hours, 18minutes.
One of the Olympic rules is that if no one from a country achieves an Olympic track and field qualifying standard, then that country can send one male and one female athlete if they choose to. With Sri Lanka’a other main hope for a place in London (a 1500m runner) recently having had surgery, things look good for Cooray. In percentage terms, Anuradha’s time is closer to the qualifying standard and the Sri Lankan authorities have stated that they will take the athlete with the nearest time to the standard.
However, Nick Taylor has said that “he can’t be left in a position where his destiny is in others hands and so the plan is to run the London marathon on the 22nd April 2012, where he will be targeting the Olympic A standard of 2.15. I currently think he is in 2.14/2.15 shape and running 2.18 and bits in the hot and humid conditions in Pune, without any time to acclimatise, supports that. The difference between now and back in 2003/2004 when Anuradha won the South Asian games and came 30th in the Athens Olympics, is that we can totally focus on the Olympics 2012 and not be distracted from that path.”
Prior to Athens, Anuradha was racing and travelling far too much, rather than purely focusing on the Olympics games, but of course back then, he was in the Army, his coach was a Brigadier and he had to follow orders. With that in mind Anuradha, has turned down to fully funded offers to travel and compete in Mumbai in January and Hong Kong in May. What would really help is sponsorship from somewhere, which would help him to have a couple of long training stints over the winter months and a couple of medium training stints between April and August.
I am sure there must be businesses in the local community who would regard sponsoring an Olympian from the local area as a great return on their investment? Will he be on the Olympic start line in 2012? Oh yes, absolutely!