Eight men and women Beach Volleyball players for Asian c’ships in Thailand
Sri Lanka women players (from left) Ruwani, Kasuni, Sagari and Geethika with coach Mahesh at centre
The Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation will send eight players (men and women) to take part in two Asian Beach Volleyball Championships to be held in Thailand from April 9 to 16. The competition is being conducted by the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC). Over 20 countries are scheduled to take part in the event.
The first tournament is the Nakohon SI Open (men and women) where two women and two men will take part from April 9 to 11. The other contest is the Seventeenth Samila Open (two men and two women) under 25 from April 14 to 16 will participate.
Prasanna Udayakumara, the Head Coach , a former Beach Volleyball player says that Sri Lanka started playing beach volleyball in 2003 and so far Sri Lanka has won an Asian level Bronze medal through Asanka Pradeep and Malintha Yapa in 2012.
“Sri Lanka is fielding two strong teams and we expect to win medals in the open categories (men and women). The Sri Lanka team was selected from a pool of 21 players and have been training for about two months at the Heyantuduwa NYSC Training Centre and the Negombo beach,” said Udayakumara.
The Coach of the Under-25 team is Mahesh Perera who is also a national level Beach Volleyball player
The Sri Lanka team will leave for the contests on April 6 at 7am on flight UL 882.
Sri Lanka Beach Volleyball Association’s Senior Vice President Commodore Sanath Uthpala was in charge of the training.
Open Men: Pubudu Ekanayake (AF), Asanka Pradeep Kumara (AF)
Women: Deepika Lalani Gunewardena (Air Force), Sagari Gunasinghe (Navy)
Men Under-25: Anjana Sandeepa (Army), Ranga Prabath (NYSC)
Women Under-25: Ruwani Thaksala (AF), Kasuni Tharaka (Navy)
Men’s Head Coach: Prasanna Udayakumara
Under-25 Coach: Mahesh Perera
Manager: C. Ratna Mudali
Sports Ministry Observer: Dhanapala Jayapathna