Sri Lanka’s Christine Merrill turns heads at opening ceremony

Well before the opening ceremony had even aired on the West Coast, I became aware of Sri Lankan athlete Christine Merrill who received all sorts of attention on Twitter. The young hurdler was mentioned by a few notable tweeters like CJ Zero and Bubbaprog, who noted that Merrill actually was born in Bakersfield, Ca. despite marching for Sri Lanka.

Merrill missed the Olympics qualifying standard, but she was given a wild card entry by Sri Lanka. She runs the 400m hurdles and ran for UCSD where she majored in mechanical engineering. UT San Diego had an excellent feature on her this week.

Photo via @CJZero, @RKZUK