Debutant Sri Lankan baseball team opened their campaign in style when they beat Laos 15-10 in the ongoing Asian Games in Jakarta yesterday. This is the very first international competition the Sri Lanka national baseball team was taking part in. Coincidentally their opponents Laos too were making their debut at the Asian Games.
Sri Lanka ranked seventh in Asia and a world rank of 47 will take on Thailand (ranked 56 in the world) today.
Unfortunately Sri Lanka missed one of its biggest medal hopes in the men's 100m freestyle relay swimming event as Kyle Abeysinghe had to pull out from the race due to a foul start. Lankan swimmers completed the race in 3:22.34 secs which would have been a new Sri Lanka record and an easy access to the final, if not for the Kyle's fault. The team comprised Matthew Abeysinghe, Cherantha de Silva, Akalanka Peiris and Kyle. Matthew gave Sri Lanka a fine start completing the first lap clocking 49.16 secs. Kyle was the next swimmer who finished second followed by Cherantha and Akalanka respectively who completed the race.
Sri Lanka was placed overall sixth in the 100m freestyle relay preliminaries where 18 countries participated and should have been a medal hope if not for the disqualification.
The same swimming quartet holds the Sri Lanka record for the event (3:22.84secs) which they have set up at this year's Commonwealth Games semi-final round. They faced the same fate in the Commonwealth Games final round and got disqualified.
Following yesterday's disqualification relay team's coach Michel Aaron said that lack of practice together can lead to this type of faults.
"Technically it has been reported as a foul start by Kyle. The main reason for such faults is practicing individually. The swimmers get together only at this type of international events which can lead to coordination and communication problems. It is very important for a relay team to practice together for a fair amount of time before the big events. If we are to overcome these errors the swimmers must start practicing together months before the top events," coach Aaron explained.
Akalanka Peris will compete today in the 50m butterfly stroke and 200m backstroke preliminaries while Cherantha de Silva will also compete in the 50m butterfly stroke initial round. Abeysinghe brothers will swim in the 100m freestyle first round today.
Commonwealth Games weightlifting silver medalist Indika Dissanayaka competing in the 69kg weight class lifted 130kgs in the snatch but failed in all three attempts of the clean and jerk lift.
Sri Lanka scored a victory in Taekwondo yesterday when Chalinda Sampath competing in the 63kg weight class beat his Japanese opponent Masanoja Homma 21-18. But he was defeated by Uzbekistan's Sador Toyrov 6-22 and pulled out of the competition.
Today is the final day of the taekwondo events and Sri Lanka's Kumudu Kalpani will battle with Pakistan's Seid Zidra (49kgs) in the quarterfinal round.
The Lankan men's hockey team continued its losing streak going down to South Korea 8-0. They were thrashed 11-0 by Japan in their first game.
Lankan woman weightlifter Chamari Warnakulasuriya who set up a new Sri Lanka record in the 53kg weight class on Monday with a performance of 96kg in clean and jerk ended up in 10th place in the finals out of 12 contestants.
The match between Lankan 3x3 basketball women's team and host Indonesian counterparts was scheduled to dribble off yesterday night.
At the end of the fourth day China took the lead in the medals table and Japan were in second place with South Korea placed third. Indonesia and Iran were placed fourth and fifth respectively.
Add new comment