Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam


Dr Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam represented Sri Lanka at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympic Games.
Ethirveerasingam also participated in three Asian Games: 1954, 1958, and 1962.
He won the Gold Medal at the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games, which was the first Gold Medal of any kind for Sri Lanka.
At the 1962 Djakarta Asian Games he took home the Silver Medal. He was co-record holder at the 1954 Manila Asian Games after jumping the same height as the gold, silver, and bronze jumpers, but came fourth due to having more misses than the other athletes. Ethirveerasingam finished eleventh in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games high jump.

Early life and career

He was a student at Jaffna Central College, where apart from his accomplishments in athletics was a cricketer, which is not well publicised because of his athletic achievements. Competed for UCLA in the high jump at the 1959 and 1960 conference championships.
He taught at universities in Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. He also worked for UNESCO for five years.
In later years whilst lecturing in Sierra Leone he captained the University cricket team in the local cricket tournament and in 1973 was appointed vice captain of the national team that played against the neighbouring country of Gambia.