Sri Lanka rugby team finish in 10th place with a consolation win over Nepal
Source:Dailynews
The Sri Lanka seven-member rugby team, which went to Hangzhou, China under the Asian Olympic flag, had to finish its event at the Asian Games in 10th place.
Due to an international ban, the Sri Lankan rugby team, which entered the competition under the Asian Olympic flag, had to compete for places between 9-13 due to losing both matches in the preliminary round. However, the Sri Lankan players, who won the first two matches of the 9-13 round, managed to record a great victory of 68-0 points in the match against Nepal held yesterday morning, and because of having to lose 10-7 points against Thailand in the match held in the afternoon under that round they lost the ninth place. Although the Sri Lankan team managed to take a 5-7 lead in the first half of the match, with this defeat, the Sri Lankan team had to finish the tournament as the 10th out of 13 teams in the Asian Games this year. Despite winning the match against Sri Lanka, Thailand was ranked 11th. Hong Kong won the men’s gold medal while South Korea and Japan won the silver and bronze medals respectively while the Philippines took ninth place.
However, at the 18th Asian Games held in Jakarta last time in 2018, the Sri Lankan rugby team, which competed under the leadership of Sudarshan Muthutantri, was ranked fourth.
Sri Lanka, which defeated Afghanistan by 36-10 points and Philippines by 14-7 points in the 9-13 round of games at this year’s festival, did not give the Nepali players a chance to score from the beginning of the game yesterday morning, and ended the first half with 42-0 points. The rugby team, which finished its event yesterday, is scheduled to return to Sri Lanka tomorrow.
Swimming
Although swimmer Ganga Seneviratne qualified for the first round of the women’s 200m backstroke preliminary round yesterday, she had to give up her hopes for the finals. In that event, she finished fifth in 2:26.37 Minutes, 16th overall.
Matthew Abeysinghe, who competed at the 6th race of the men’s 50m freestyle preliminary round, recorded a time of 23.10 seconds, and being the fourth in that category, he was ranked 11th among the overall athletes.
Gymnastics
Nalin Netviru finished 17th out of 18 competitors in the artistic gymnastics event. However, he scored 71.065 points in the all-around, which was also recorded as his personal best.
Wind boats
Ariana Thalia, who entered the women’s dinghy ILCA4 event in windsurfing, finished 5th, while Taren Kashyap, who entered the men’s event, finished 11th.
Chess
Chess player Susal Thevjan de Silva lost to the Vietnamese player in the 5th round of the men’s singles event yesterday, and recorded victory against the Mongolian player in the 6th round. He defeated the Hong Kong and Thai players in the previous rounds, before drawing against the Uzbekistan player and losing to the Chinese player.
Boxing
Rukmal Prasanna lost 3-2 to Bangladesh’s Hossain Salim in the round of 32 in boxing’s 51kg category. Although Rukmal won the last two rounds of this match, the Bangladesh player who managed to win the first 3 rounds secured the win.
Wushu
In the wushu men’s 60 kg weight class, Pathum Nuwan Balawardena lost 1-2 to South Korea in the round of 8, while Vietnam’s Nipun Shanika, who competed in the men’s 65 kg weight class, had a non-competition victory.
Men’s cricket starts today
The men’s cricket event of the tournament will begin today at the University of Technology Cricket Ground in Sejang.
13 teams will participate in this tournament and Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are at the top of the rankings in the women’s tournament as well as in the men’s tournament, have directly qualified for the quarter-finals.
In the preliminary round, 9 teams will compete in 3 groups, and the top 4 teams will qualify for the semi-finals. The semi-final matches will start from 3rd of next month.
China is at the forefront
By the afternoon of the fourth day of the Asian Games, China had managed to take the lead in the medal table, while South Korea took the second place and Japan the third place. India was at the 6th place. Sri Lanka, who won a silver medal after 9 years, was ranked 20th.
