 |
| Manjula Kumara Wijesekera |
For the first time in the history of the South Asian Federation (SAF) Games a Twenty/20 Cricket Competition will be held at the 11th version to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh from January 29 to February 7.
Ashan Priyanjana of Nalanda will lead Sri Lanka at this inaugural competition. Ananda College Old Boy Dinesh Chandimal, who is being groomed for international status will be the deputy skipper.
When contacted by the Sunday Times, Ashan Priyanjana said that the team has been training dedicatedly for the event and all are keen as mustard to do well at the competition. “It will be a challenging task. There is Thisara Perera, Lahiru Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal in the team,. They are all experienced enough to beat our opponents from the participating teams,” said Ashan.
The teams that will take part in this inaugural tournament are: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
The stage is set and all is in readiness for the Games and Sri Lanka’s contingent for the event is expected to be around 328. They will compete in 23 disciplines and 67 officials will accompany the Sri Lanka contingent. To all counts all participants have been training hard and are determined to do their best at the 12 day sporting extravaganza.Sri Lanka will lay a lot of hope on the performances of their sprint star Shehan Ambepitiya. Another athlete who is expected to do well is Manjula Kumara Wijesekera specially after he bagged the High Jump gold at the Asian Athletic Championship at Guangzhou, China last year
The sports that Sri Lanka will be represented in are:
Athletics: (22 men, 12 women); Swimming (6 men, 6 women); Boxing (6 men); Karate (6 men, 6 women); Taekwondo (6 men, 4 women); Weightlifting (6 men); Badminton (6 men, 6 women); Squash (4 men); Judo (5 men); Wushu (6 men, 4 women); Archery (4 men, 4 women); Wrestling (5 men); Table Tennis (5 men, 5 women); Golf (4 men); Cycling (4 men, 4 women); Shooting (6 men, 4 women); Cricket (14); Volleyball (10 men); Kabadi (10 men, 10 women); Hockey (15 men); Basketball (9 men); Football (30), Judo (10 men and 10 women).
 |
| Ashan Priyanjan |
Taking a look at the 4th Asian Games in Islamabad in 1989 one cannot forget the performance of Sri Lanka’s Julian Bolling who retained all three of his previous titles – 200 meters freestyle, 400 meter freestyle and the 400 meter individual medley. Julian also won a fourth gold medal in the 1500 meter freestyle. Julian won two golds in the First SAF Games in Nepal, did not take part in the second and bagged three golds in the third games held in Kalicut (India) and has won nine gold medals up to 1989. Julian also won five golds medals in 1991 at the SAF Games held in Colombo and is the highest gold medal winner with 14. Julian won 4 gold in Islamabad while two athletes - V.K.L. Samarasinghe won gold in the men’s marathon and V.P. Amarasekra a gold in the women’s javelin.
India has been dominating the SAF Games. At the fourth version of the event India took top spots with 61 gold, 43 silver, 31 bronze with a total of 124 medals. Pakistan were in second spot with 42 gold, 33 silver, 22 bronze and a total of 97 medals. Sri Lanka were third in the third SAF Games in 1987 at Kalicut with 6 gold, 10 silver, 21 bronze. Total 37 medals. Records also show that Maldives won only a bronze medal at the inaugural games in Katmandu in 1984.
The Badminton Federation of Sri Lanka has named the following players for the Games: Niluka Karunaratne, Dinuka Karunaratne, Nuwan Hettiarachchi, Diluka Karunaratne, R.S Dahanayake, Hasitha Chanaka (Men), Achini Ratnasiri, Thilini Jayasinghe, Chandrika de Silva, Lekha Shehani, Upuli Samanthilaka and Nadeesha Gaythri. |
E-mail
