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Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from South Korea

BUSAN, Friday - Promising Anura Rohana kept Sri Lanka's medal chances alive after an excellent round of golf to take the lead by day two of the 14th Asian Games golf championships continued at the Asiad Country Club course here yesterday.

Rohana, who was joint third with Japan's Riki Ikeda after the first day's play yesterday, played even better golf in the second session today to take the lead over Taiwan's Chen Liang Cheng and Indian Shiv Kapur, who were joint first with a net 70 each on day one.

The Lankan lad followed his first day's 71 with an impressive 70 to total 141 to take the first place out of 62 golfers taking part in the men's individual championship.

Rohana maintains a close lead over the Taiwan pair of Cheng and H.W. Chang, who share second place with 142. Chang, who only had 75 on day one, was the most impressive yesterday with a net 67 to total 142 and advanced to the second place.

Of the other two Lankans taking part in the men's individual championships, Lalith Kumara is placed 21st with 153, following his first day's 78 with a slightly better performance of 75 yesterday.

Tissa Chandradasa, who fared better than Kumara to take the sixth place after the first round yesterday, had a net 73 today to remain in the same position of the overall standings of the men's individual championship.

Though Anura Rohana was the star by the second of the scheduled four rounds, Sri Lanka men's team slightly lost its control in the team championship. Sri Lanka, which was placed second behind Taiwan on day one, has now dropped to third place.

Heading the team championship standings after the second round of golf is Taiwan (427), followed by Japan (437), Sri Lanka (441), South Korea (448), Malaysia (448), India (453), Thailand (455) and the Philippines (456). 16 countries are taking part in the team championship. Sri Lankan star today, Anura Rohana will have to survive two more rounds of tough golf this weekend (on Saturday and Sunday), if he is to maintain the lead and strike the men's individual gold medal. Sri Lanka had mixed fortunes at the billiards competition of the 14th Asian Games at the Dongju College gymnasium here today. Henry Boteju won his match while K. H. Sirisoma lost in the billiards 9-ball singles preliminary round. At the table four, experienced Boteju had a comfortable 11-0 victory against the Crown Prince of Brunei, Haji Bolkiah. But Sirisoma lost his match to Kuwaiti Tareq Al-Mulla 4-11 at the adjoining table five.

At the Masan Gymnasium, Sri Lanka's Harsha Kumara lost his light flyweight 48kg preliminary round Asian Games boxing bout to Mongolian Choijijav Bumchin today. Playing in the blue corner, the Lankan lad tried his heart out to battle it through the four rounds to lose on points at the end 20-34. The next Lankan boxer to be seen in action will be Anuruddha Bandara Ratnayake who will take on Nepal's Ramesh Shrestha in flyweight 51kg preliminary round bout today (5).

Japan beat Sri Lanka 23-4 in the opening match of the 14th Asian Games kabaddi competition begun at the Tongmyong University of Information Technology, Busan here yesterday.

Sri Lanka played better in the first half only to trail 3-5 at the breather. But Japan took total control of the game in the second half, during which they collected 18 more points with 14 outs and four lona while Sri Lanka had a solitary out.

In the evenly contested first half, Japan had five outs and Sri Lanka two. Sri Lanka's second match will be against Pakistan today (5). At the Changwon International Sooting Range, Sri Lanka's Commonwealth Games gold medallist Pushpamali Ramanayake finished only tenth in the qualifying round of the women's 50m rifle prone event. She had breaks of 96, 97, 99, 98, 99 to total 588 and share the tenth place with Malaysian Nurul Hudda Baharin.

But both narrowly missed out of places in the final round, for which only the top eight qualified. Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan (597) headed the list of 42 shooters who took part in the qualifying round. Ramanayake's team mate Indunil Pussella finished joint 14th with SAF Games gold medallist Anjali Bhagwat with 585 each.

At the Busan Yacht Centre, Sri Lankan pair of Lalin Jirasinghe and Krishan Janaka, the Bangkok 1998 Games medallists, continued their unimpressive form in finishing fifth and last at the third race of the enterprise open of the 14th Asian Games sailing competition continued today. The Lankan pair finished last in today's third race, behind South Korea, India, Pakistan and Malaysia.

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