Sri Lankan sprinter Yupun Abeykoon finished fifth in the 100m event at the Diamond League meet held in Oslo, Norway yesterday, clocking a time of 10.16 seconds.

He could not better his personal best time, but in wet and cold conditions, Abeykoon was only one-hundreth of a second behind Benjamin Azamati of Ghana, and two hundreths of a second ahead of Sani Brown of Japan, who finished sixth.

The event was won by Olympic silver medalist Andre de Grasse of Canada, with a season’s best time of 10.05 secs, pipping Reece Prescod of Great Britain.

South African Akani Simbine, a finalist in the 100m at the Tokyo Olympics, finished third with a time of 10.09 secs. 

Abeykoon is the only Sri Lankan to compete at a Diamond League event, having also taken part in the Rome meet last year. 

He went on to compete at the Men’s 100m event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, becoming the first Sri Lankan athlete in 25 years to take part in that event.