Story of a great athlete

Hello guys, Today as my first post in this community, I would like to tell you a story of a man who never gave up. He was a great athlete in Sri Lanka and his name was Ranathunga Karunananda. He was born in 1936.

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When he was young he joined the Sri Lankan Army. Since he was a child, he wants to be an athlete. So even after joined with the army, he never forgot his dream. So he practiced every day and selected to 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan to represent his motherland.
Game began. It was a men’s 10000m event. There were 29 athletes from 17 nations. Our hero was one of them. But unfortunately, he was suffering from a bad cold. But still, he wanted to participate, Make his country proud. So he entered the event. And the game started. Signal fired. He started running beside Billy mills from America. But eventually, one by one the runner passed him. But karunananda was never stopped. He ran as much as he can. But he was one lap(400m) behind the other runners. By the end of the 20th lap, Karunananda was the last runner.

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The race ended. Billy Mills from America won 1’st place. Mohammed Gammoudi from Tunisia won Second place and Ron Clarke from Australia won third place. As the game was finished most of the players were stopped running. But our karunanda was still running on the ground. He has to run 4 laps more to finish his game. 60,000 spectators made laugh at karunananda.” Who is this crazy man? “All the crowd booed him. But our hero never stopped. He ran as fast as he can. The crowd was amazed. All the people got up from their seats and clapped. All the people cheered him as “Karu Ceylon, Karu Ceylon “Finally he finished his last lap with a big round of applause.

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Even though he didn’t win a medal, he won 60,000 hearts on that day. Billy Mills who won the gold medal said that “this medal doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Karunananda”.After then Karunananda was named in Olympic history as “The greatest loser”. Japanese entered this story into their school syllabus.

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As a Sri Lankan, this story always makes me proud. And as an athlete this story always makes me inspired. In the old days when I was practicing for 400m on University ground, I always stopped running at 300m line. Even my coach and other athletes insisted me to end the event, I couldn’t run one step. So always I gave up and thought I’m not good at running. But after I heard this great story, it always cheers me up. It doesn’t matter you didn’t get any medal. Participation is what matters the most. Finish what you have started. Never give up. Chase your dreams.

Thank you.