Matthew breaks national record in Freestyle event

Matthew Abeysinghe set a new national record in the men’s 50m butterfly event held yesterday at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena swimming pool at the Asian Games.

He joined the 5th match in the preliminary round of the event and set this record by finishing in sixth with a time of 24.58 seconds. In this competition, Matthew broke the record of 24.89 seconds set by Akalanka Peiris at last year’s Commonwealth Games. The presence of Akalanka Peiris in the 3rd preliminary round of this competition was also special. The time he recorded yesterday was 24.91 seconds. Among the eight swimmers in that round, Akalanka was ranked 7th.

Thus, out of the total 40 swimmers, Matthew Abeysinghe was placed 18th and Akalanka Peiris placed 22nd, so they had to give up their medal hopes in this event. Inchul Baek from South Korea, who joined Matthew in the preliminary match of the 5th round, created a new match record (23.39).

Boxing

Niraj Wijewardene, who entered the boxing event in the Men’s 63.5-71Kg weight class, lost 5-0 to Chia Wei from Chinese Taipei. Although Niraj tried to give his opponent a good fight, but the Taipei player did not give him a chance to come forward in all the five rounds. With this defeat, Sri Lanka’s representation in the Asian Games Boxing event came to an end.

Golf

Meanwhile, starting the golf event of the Asian Games yesterday, the Sri Lankan team participated in the preliminary rounds of singles matches and team matches at the West Lake International Golf Course.

In the Men’s Individual event, Tharangaraja was ranked 31st with 70 points to spare. Along with him, 7 players were in that position, and Anura Ranasinghe with 71 points was in 38th position competing against eight players. Mithun Perera and K. Prabhagaran finished their tally at 47th position with 72 points.

In the first match of the preliminary round of the men’s team event, Sri Lanka scored 213 points and tied with Nepal for 12th position out of 20 countries. Under this event, singles and doubles matches will be held today.

Esports

The Sri Lankan team participating in the Esports game joined the first match of the preliminary round in the ‘B’ group of the Peace Elite event yesterday morning, and finished the match second only to the Chinese Taipei team among the 4 teams. The Taipei team finished the event in 48:21.048 minutes, while Sri Lanka’s time was 57:33.253 minutes. The Lankan players joined the second competition in the ‘C’ category last night under this event and won second place with a time of 1:03:52.435 hours. The first place went to Saudi Arabia (1:02:55.712 hours).

In the Esports event, Sri Lanka will play two more matches in the preliminary round today, and the 4 teams with the least time at the end of the preliminary round will join the final eight teams.

Cricket

Malaysia and Maldives managed to win the matches held yesterday under the men’s preliminary round of the cricket event. Singapore lost to Malaysia by 73 runs in the third match of the preliminary round held yesterday morning at the Sheijang University Cricket Ground in Hangzhou, while Maldives won the second match by 9 wickets against Mongolia.

Today on the field

Sri Lanka’s main medal hopes at the Asian Games, the athletics events will begin today (29) at the Olympic Sports Center Stadium or Big Lotus in Hanje, and Sri Lankan athletes Nadeesha Ramanayake, Kalinga Kumarage and Aruna Darshana are scheduled to enter the competition field today.

All these three athletes will represent the 400m event, and Nadisha Ramanayake will take part in the second race of the women’s preliminary round at 4.38 pm local time. At 4.55 pm, Kalinga Kumara’s 400m men’s preliminary round will be the first race starting at 5.10 pm, Aruna Darshan will be taking part in the third race of the preliminary round of the event.

Meanwhile, the swimming events of this year’s Games are scheduled to end today, where Mathew Abeysinghe and Akalanka Peiris will compete.