Sri Lanka finish in 17th position

Chintana WASALA reporting from China

Sri Lanka finished 17th, bagging two bronze medals while China and Thailand swept away most of the gold medals, placing first and second respectively when the third edition of the Asian Beach Games were wrapped up last evening.

The men’s and women’s beach kabaddi teams were the successful medal hunters for Sri Lanka, when both teams reached the semi-finals in their respective events.

Indian women won the beach kabaddi crown of Asia when they beat Thailand 54-25 in the final held yesterday. Iran, who were nowhere near a medal in beach kabaddi three years earlier, outplayed kabaddi specialists Pakistan 39-33, in a close battle.

Thirty six out of 160 Chinese athletes succeeded in adding medals to Chinese medal count which included 14 gold medals, 10 silver and 12 bronze medals. Thailand were head to head with the Asian giants, China and were leading the points table on Thursday. But the Chinese uprising could not be hampered and Thailand were dragged to the second slot of the medals table with 13 gold medals, nine silver medals and six bronze, making a total of 28 medals.

The third edition of the Asian Beach games marked the highest participation in a beach sports event, with more than 2,000 athletes gathering at China?s eastern seaside city of Haiyang.

Athletes from 43 out of 45 Asian countries competed in the event that attracted thousands of spectators to the newly built garden-like city.

Afghanistan won the beach basketball final, defeating Turkmenistan 16-9 while Mongolia won the bronze, beating Bangladesh.

Qatar beat Bahrain 2-0 and bagged the mens beach handball title while Pakistan won the bronze medal when they beat Oman 2-1. China won the women’s event, beating Chinese Taipei 2-0 in the final and Vietnam beat Thailand to bag the bronze medal.

A colourful closing ceremony was held near the Haiyang beach where thousands of lights and laser shows added colour.

The next Asian Beach Games will be hosted by Thailand in 2014.