Nadeesha bags Javelin silver

With a new Sri Lankan record, Nadeesha Dilhani Lekamge yesterday won a silver medal for Sri Lanka in athletics at an Asian Games after 17 years.

Taking part in the women’s Javelin event at the Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Hanjei, Nadeesha cleared 61.57m in her fourth attempt. This performance erased the Sri Lankan record she had set with 60.93 meters in the Asian Athletics Championship held in Bangkok, Thailand last July.

India’s Annu Rani won the gold medal with 62.92 meters, while Chinese’s Lyu Huihui won the bronze medal (61.29).

The last time Sri Lanka won an athletics medal at an Asian Games was in 2006 in Doha. Susanthika Jayasinghe won the 100m silver medal and the 200m bronze medal, while the 400m relay team won the bronze medal.

This is the best performance for Sri Lanka in the women’s Javelin at the Asian Games, previously Vijitha Amarasekara had won fourth place in 1990 with a performance of 56.68 meters.

This is the second silver medal won by Sri Lanka at this year’s games, while the women’s cricket team won the first silver medal. With that, Sri Lanka moved up to the 27th position in the medal table.

In the 19th Asian Games being held in Hangzhou, China, Sri Lankan athletes will compete in the women’s 800m and women’s 400m relay events today. The women’s 800m final will be held at 4.55 pm local time and the men’s final of the 400m relay event will be worked off at 6.05 pm, followed by the women’s final at 5.45 pm. The women’s 400m relay event was not contested in the preliminary round as only eight teams will participate.

Tarushi Karunaratne, who participated in the third race of the preliminary round of the 800 metres held yesterday morning at the Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Hanje, finished the race in second place with a time of 2:05.48 minutes. Among the female athletes, she was also second, and Gayanthika Abeyratne, who joined the second preliminary round, finished third with a time of 2:07.17 minutes. According to the competition time, she entered the finals from the 6th place among all the players. Gayanthika will compete in the 6th lane and Tarushi in the 8th lane in today’s race.

Joining the second race of the preliminary round of the men’s 400m relay event yesterday, the Sri Lankan team finished the race in 3:06.60 minutes and took the second place. The first place was taken by the Philippines with a time of 3:06.15 minutes. Dinuka Deshan, Pabasara Nikoo, Rajitha Rajakaruna and Pasindu Kodikara represented the Sri Lankan team and Kalinga Kumarage and Aruna Darshana will take part in today’s final. Sri Lanka finished in fourth place among the 9 teams that qualified for the finals. They will compete from lane 6 today.

In this event, Chinese Taipei and Mongolia teams were disqualified. There, the Sri Lanka mixed support team as well as the Taipei team had violated Article 17.3.1 of the Athletics Law.

Sri Lankan cricket team starts the battle

The Sri Lankan cricket team, led by Sahan Arachchige, will enter the field today, starting the men’s cricket event at the Asian Games. 5 countries, including Sri Lanka, qualified for the semi-finals without playing in the preliminary round of this tournament, and accordingly, Sri Lanka will play against Afghanistan today, who qualified directly for this round. This match will be held considered the third semi-final match.

Meanwhile, in the first quarter-final of the tournament held yesterday, India won by 23 runs against Nepal, and in the

 

second match, Pakistan won by 68 runs. Batting first in that match, the Pakistan team scored 160 runs, and in reply, the Hong Kong team could score only 92 runs in 18.5 overs.

 

Batting first in the first match, in the face of India’s target of 203 runs, Nepal could score only 179 runs at the end of 20 overs for the loss of 9 wickets.

Squash

Sri Lanka managed to win yesterday’s ‘B’ group match with the host Chinese team in the squash mixed doubles event by 2-0. This team represented by Shamil Vakil and Chanithma Sinaly won 11-6 in both rounds. Due to losing the first two matches under the preliminary round, the Sri Lankan team got the 3rd place. Due to this, Sri Lanka also lost the opportunity to join the semi-finals.

Badminton

Viren Nettasinghe, who is the only badminton player at this year’s sports event, managed to qualify for the round of 16 in the men’s singles event yesterday. Viren won the first round 21-8 and the second round 21-16 against Mongolia’s Sumiyasuren Enkbut in the round of 32 yesterday. Round of 16 matches will be held today.

Weight Lifting

Indika Dissanayake, who was the last representative of Sri Lanka in the weightlifting event, competed in the ‘B’ category of 73 kg weight class yesterday, and he lifted a total weight of 285 kg with 125 kg in the Snatch and 160 kg in the Clean & Jerk. Although he finished second among four players, he did not get a chance to win a medal.

Speaking to ‘Daily News’ after the event, Indika said that he tried to reach at least the 300 kg limit, but she failed. He claimed that have to take part in two international level tournaments in two weeks was the reason for his failure. Indika had participated in the World Weightlifting Championship two weeks ago to qualify for the Olympics. There he managed to set 3 new Sri Lankan records in the 73 kg weight class, and last July he also took part in the Commonwealth Weightlifting Tournament. Indika said that he was not able to show his best skills due to having to play in three tournaments.