Rumesh Tharanga - The Boy Making Big Waves!
Rumesh Tharanga who turns 23 years today, is the first Sri Lankan Athlete to break the 85m barrier in Men's Javelin and will soon compete in the Diamond League later this year.
He was once a Fast Bowling prodigy in schools cricket before his real talent was nurtured with a Javelin. Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage, a young Javelin star in the making, celebrates is not your average 23 year old as he has already made big waves on the global stage!
Born on a day like this in 2003, young Rumesh was a Fast bowler for his school cricket team at Sri Palee National School, Horana and even went on to become the Vice Captain of the Kaluthara District team. He was also keen on athletics at the time, displaying great skill in throwing events like Javelin and Discus, but the big changeover came once he was made to focus only on Javelin.
The Change From Cricket to Athletics
It all started when Coach Tony Prasanna saw another side of this budding cricketer. Having performed at the Junior John Tarbet in Javelin, Coach Tony made him focus only on Javelin and was instrumental in his admission to St.Peter's College where he became the new schoolboy record holder at U20 and was also part of the 2022 World Junior Athletics team.
Fun fact - when he was 16 years, he clocked 134kmph at the Airtel Sri Lanka's Fastest, one of the known pace talent hunting programs conducted in Sri Lanka by Airtel back in 2019 (and now rebranded as Singer Pace Hunt spearheaded by Lasith Malinga). He was only second to Eshan Malinga in the Under 18 category, who now plays for Sri Lanka and is awaiting his NOC to play in this year's IPL!
The Rapid Rise To World Top 10
Rumesh became an overnight sensation when he threw a monstrous 85.45m at the Asian Throwing Championships in 2024 to win the Gold medal. Despite breaking the National record held by Sumedha Ranasinghe, he was short by 5cm of the direct qualification for the Olympics and didn't have a lot of time to compete in at least 5 events in order to qualify based on World Rankings.
Having earned the bragging rights to compete in Perth and Brisbane for the World Athletics Continental Tour, he also finished with a Silver medal in the Neeraj Chopra Classic last year before competing in the all important World Athletics Championship in Tokyo last year.
He qualified into the finals as the youngest competitor, beating all his former competitors in the 2022 World Junior Championships and went all the way to the Top 8 round, finishing with an impressive 7th place, the same position he achieved back then but behind the best in the World and even beating both recent Olympic Gold medalists Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem.
A Shining Diamond in the Big League
With Rumesh finding consistency in his events and regularly hitting the 80m mark, a feat no Sri Lankan has achieved until now, he has finally qualified to compete in the Rome and Lausanne legs of the Diamond League, a first for any Sri Lankan Field Athlete and first since Yupun Abeykoon.
A shining beacon in Sri Lankan athletics, his story of being a cricketer to competing against some of the biggest names we know today is nothing short of inspirational and will continue to progress as the highest ranked Sri Lankan athlete with very high hopes of medal contention in man of the upcoming global sports events, including the Olympics.
Here we see him in a sponsorship agreement with LOLC Finance, in support of his Olympic dream.
Here's to wishing Rumesh on his 23rd birthday today!