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by Shirajiv Sirimane

Sri Lanka won a gold medal at the 6th Gay games which was held from November 2 to 9 in Sydney Australia. This is the first time that Sri Lanka took part in this event and returned winning a gold.

The Lankan competitor, a former National School games athletes won the gold from the Javelin event. She competed in the 18 to 29 age group category and won her event with a throw of 27.4 metres. The winner said that she was very happy with this result and said that it was a dream come true.

Sri Lanka also did well in the 800m event qualifying for the final and finishing 7th. She returned a time of 02:55.00 seconds.

However the other two members from Sri Lanka, golfer and the pool billiards player could not make an impact, failing to qualify for the final rounds.

The team represented the Sri Lanka Women's support Group and their entire tour was sponsored by the organising committee of the Gay games.

Fifteen thousand lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender Sportsmen and women from over 61 countries participated in the games held every four years. The eight day sports festival saw 31 events being worked out and a total participation of 11, 500 athletes, 100 soccer teams, 1200 swimmers and more than 3,000 volunteers.

It was announced that the organising committee had raised 100 million Australian dollars from this event.

This is the first Gay Games to be held in the southern hemisphere. The first Gay Games was held in San Francisco while the next games will be held in Montreal Canada in 2006.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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