Sriyantha Dissanayake was born in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka on the 3rd of April 1969. He was one of four children. Sriyantha was a champion athlete during his school days at Nalanda College Colombo in the late 1980s. He became national champion at the age of eighteen and went on to win this honour 5 more times. 

Sriyantha Dissanayake won a silver and a bronze medal in 1990 Asian Games in Beijing and brought pride to Sri Lanka. In the 1991 South Asian Games held in Colombo he won gold medals in both the 100 metre and 200 metre events. In addition, he gained two more gold medals and a silver in the 1993 South Asian Games in Dhaka. Sriyantha also represented Sri Lanka in athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona, Spain. He is arguably the best male sprinter to come from his island being the only Sri Lankan athlete to have won a 100 metre medal in the Asian games. He was given the status of Deshabandu as a mark of his achievements.