Javelin throw sensation Rumesh Pathirage claimed that three of his javelins were damaged in a flight from Hungary to Sri Lanka. Pathirage was returning from Budapest, where he had won the World Athletics Ultimate Championships title on Sunday.

“All three javelins I used for over 90 throws have been damaged. It might have been a mistake by the airline, but that’s how it is. It’s not a big issue. I’ll move on,” Pathirage was quoted as saying by Sri Lankan outlet NewsWire.

The star Lankan athlete posted photos of the allegedly broken javelins in an Instagram story, with captions “Thank you Turkish Airlines” and “Bad luck”.

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Pathirage had thrown 91.09m in his final attempt to win the World Athletics Ultimate Championships title. He is having a superlative run this season, having won 11 out of the 12 international competitions he has participated in. This includes the Diamond League finale and Commonwealth Games.

He had earlier thrown a world-leading 92.62m in Rome and backed it up with a 92.07m victory in Zurich. The 23-year-old thus holds the top three throws in the world this season and eight out of the top 10 throws.

“My next goal is to bring Olympic gold to Sri Lanka,” he told World Athletics after winning the title in Budapest. “This was my one and only goal… to bring the trophy back to Sri Lanka. I was facing a lot of challenges today, but I was still hoping to bring the trophy home and I’m proud I did it.

“Sri Lanka is a small island to be from and be here at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, so to win a trophy feels very special,” Pathirage added.

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The javelin thrower, who won $150,000 as the Ultimate Champion in the inaugural edition of the event, is a former pacer who switched to track and field. “I was playing cricket when I was at school but, after finishing school, I wanted to switch from a team to an individual sport – that’s why I changed from cricket to javelin. I inputted almost all my technique from cricket into the javelin throw because there are some similarities,” he said.