Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam

Dr Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam represented Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) at the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games and three Asian Games. Ethirveerasingham finished eleventh in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games high jump.

He won the first Asian Games gold medal for Sri Lanka in 1958. He taught at universities in Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. He also worked for UNESCO for five years. 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. 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.