Aylesbury's Cooray delighted with marathon run at Rio Olympics

Anuradha Cooray in Beijing during the marathon last year

After years of hard work and preparation, Vale of Aylesbury Athletic Club's Anuradha Cooray took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro on Sunday when competing for Sri Lanka against the world's best athletes in the Olympic marathon, the final athletics event of this year's Olympic Games.

The club are very proud of Anuradha and delighted to report that he ran a smart race in wet conditions, crossing the finish line 34th out of the 140 finishers in a time of 2:17:06, two minutes faster than his first Olympic marathon in Athens in 2004.

Known for his strong finish, Cooray did not disappoint on Sunday as he started towards the back but worked his way through to take 34th spot.

He said afterwards: “The whole day was amazing and I’m very happy to finish 34th from almost 150 athletes who started.”

At the age of 38, Anuradha had stated that he would be retiring after the Rio Games, but after such a strong race in Brazil, it is possible that he may consider running at next year’s World Championships to be held in London.

He will take a decision on that in the near future.

In the meantime, the 38-year-old will return to Aylesbury where he works as an assistant manager at Greggs in the town centre and get back to training locally for now.