Anuradha Cooray always knew that the marathon in Beijing’s World Championships would be challenging, but could not have anticipated now tough the race would be. Anuradha was competing for Sir Lanka at the games; his event was on day 1 starting at 7.30a.m., but temperatures soared up to 31 degrees with high humidity, making it a difficult run for everyone through the streets of Beijing, finishing in the Birdsnest stadium which is hosting the athletics events.
The field included the world’s top marathon runners, but 25 of them failed to complete the course, including Kenya’s world record holder Dennis Kimetto and former record holder Wilson Kipsang, both of whom dropped out at 30km. However, Anuradha did complete the course finishing a very commendable 29th in 2:25:03. He was naturally disappointed with his time; he was hoping to run 2 hours 11 minutes, which would have improved his personal best and National record set at the London Marathon this year by 2 minutes; that would have been good preparation for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio. However, nobody achieved a new personal best time because of the conditions which were outside of everyone’s control.
Anuradha is now planning to compete in the Frankfurt marathon in October, building on the benefits of the high altitude training camp in Kenya where he has worked so hard in recent months. Frankfurt will be his next step on the road to Rio and everyone at the Club will continue to encourage and support him all the way.