COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s lone female Olympic medalist, Susanthika Jayasinghe, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Diyatalawa Hospital, in the country’s central highlands on Tuesday following an undiagnosed illness.
Hospital sources told the media that Jayasinghe, who is known as a 100 meters Sprint Queen, had been suffering from fever and was admitted to hospital with the flu. Some local media reports said that she had been suffering from dengue.
The Olympic medalist and one-time sprint queen, Jayasinghe was recently appointed Advisor at the Sports Ministry for selecting and training competitors for international athletic games.
She grabbed government attention earlier this year after she blamed it for not giving her recognition despite being Sri Lanka’s first woman to win an Olympic medal.
Jayasinghe won bronze in her 100m event in Sydney when she was 24 and was upgraded to silver in 2007 when the winner and US athlete Marion Jones admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs.