Yupun Abeykoon, South Asia’s fastest man, has announced his retirement from the sport

Sri Lankan track and field athlete Yupun Abeykoon has announced his retirement from athletics at the age of 31.

Abeykoon is the current South Asian record holder in the Men’s 100m (9.96 seconds) and 200m (20.37 seconds) events and holds the national record in the Men’s 60m (6.59 seconds).

He also remains the only athlete in the South Asian region to clock under 10 seconds in the Men’s 100m, and in 2022 became the first Sri Lankan in 24 years to win a medal in Athletics at the Commonwealth Games.

Switch to 100m

Starting out in field events at schoolboy level, Abeykoon later transitioned to sprint events, with his first international competition as a sprinter being the World Military Games in South Korea in 2015.

In 2019 he began training with former Italian 400m sprinter and Olympian Claudio Licciardello at the Fiamme Gialle Sports Centre, which brought a drastic improvement in his times.

He broke the national and South Asian records in the Men’s 100m the following year, clocking 10.16 seconds at an event in Dessau, Germany.

Olympic qualification

In 2021, he clocked 10.13 seconds at a meet in Savona, Italy, which qualified him – purely on his timing and not through a wildcard entry – to compete in the Men’s 100m at the Tokyo Olympics.

He became the first Sri Lankan Men’s sprinter in 25 years to compete in the Men’s 100m event at an Olympics, after Chinthaka de Zoysa, who represented the country at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

In Tokyo, he placed sixth in the third heat with a time of 10.32 seconds, missing out on progressing to the semi-final stage.

Career year in 2022

His career year came in 2022 however, when he returned to Dessau and broke the national record again, clocking 10.04 seconds.

The following week, he clocked 20.37 seconds in the Men’s 200m at a meet in Grosseto, Italy, to break the national record (20.68 seconds) set by Vinoj Sanjaya in 2018.

Two months later, he cemented his status as the fastest man in South Asia, becoming the first and only athlete in the region with a timing under 10 seconds in the Men’s 100m, with a time of 9.96 seconds – a record that is still to be bettered.

His crowning moment came in August that year, when he became the first Sri Lankan in 24 years to win a medal in Athletics at a Commonwealth Games, finishing behind Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya and Akani Simbine of South Africa to bring home bronze.

He represented Sri Lanka in the Men’s 100m at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, becoming the first Sri Lankan sprinter to compete at the World Championships since Shehan Ambepitiya ran in the 2009 edition in Berlin.

Injury and final year

A hamstring injury and groin issues restricted his competitiveness in 2023, and although he returned the following year, he could not quite reach his best levels.

Abeykoon returned for the 2025 season with a bang, clocking a time of 6.68 seconds in a Men’s 60m in Italy – 0.09 seconds short of the national record he set in the event in 2021 – and competed in the Men’s 100m at several international meets.

His final competitive sprint last year was at the Sestriere International in Italy in August, finishing sixth in the final with a time of 10.72 seconds, in what also proved to be his final race for Sri Lanka.

Retirement message

In his parting message, Abeykoon said, “After years of sacrifices, unforgettable victories, painful defeats, and memories that will stay with me forever, the time has come to step away from the track.”

“I retire with no debt to my country, but forever indebted to the world that believed in me, guided me, and helped me become the athlete I am today,” Abeykoon also said in his statement.

He did not elaborate on why he had decided to retire but added that this was not “the end of my story. It’s simply the beginning of a new chapter.”