Heshan performs a rare feat

Daniel placed second:

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from Qatar

ASIAN GAMES: Sri Lanka's Heshan Unanmboowe secured a rare first in the first round heats of the 15th Asian Games swimming competition continued here in Qatar on Wednesday.

Despite many failures by Sri Lankan swimmers during the last few days, Heshan Unamboowe and Daniel Lee secured the first and second places in men's 100m freestyle heat 2.

Swimming in lane three, with compatriot Lee on his left on the immediate lane four, Unamboowe clocked 55.02 seconds to win the second heat. Lee came 0.37seconds behind his team mate to secure the second place in 55.39 seconds.

Nevertheless, their performances do not look that impressive, compared to the timings achieved by the rest of the competitors in other heats.

The best timing of all six heats came in heat six which was won by South Korean Tae Hwan Park (50.99). In fact, all eight competitors of this heat had timings better than 53.68.

The first five competitors of men's 100m freestyle heat three, including the Iranian winner Mohammad Bidaryan (52.44), were well ahead of Unamboowe. The first seven of the heat 5 of the same, including the winner Zuo Chen of China (51.13), had better timings than Unamboowe.

Then there was another set back in women's 200m breast stoke. South Asian Games triple gold medallist Mayumi Raheem was placed last (7) with a timing of two minutes, 51.59 seconds, finishing 22.88 seconds behind the winner - China's Hui Qi (2:28.71).

Sri Lanka's Imara Fahim finished one minute, 15.17 seconds behind the winner Carmen Nam of Hong Kong in women's 800m freestyle final, which had only five competitors. Nam clocked 9:03.72 while Fahim was last with 10:18.89.

At the Al-Dana Banquet Hall, Sri Lanka weightlifter Ranjith Kumara totalled 280kg in men's 105kg qualifying round to finish fourth. Sergey Sedov of Kazakhstan ended on top with a total lift of 337kg.

At the Lusail Shooting Range, Sri Lanka's Priyanthi Illangaratne totalled 548 points to secure the 32nd place out of 40 competitors at the women's 50m rifle three position event.

Devka Ranasinghe finished 29th with an aggregate of 561. China's Chengyi Wang fired 100.4 in the final and totalled 685.4 to win the gold medal of this event.

World Champion Wang Chengyi won a close-fought final. Yesterday's bronze medallist the 50m prone event, Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan, led by one point after the qualifying rounds in the prone, standing and kneeling positions but Wang came out on top in the final shoot-out by registering four 10.1s, a 10.5 and 10.6 to pass Dovgun, whose best effort was a 10.3, to seal the crown by 3.1 points.

It was Wang's second individual medal of the Games - she earned a bronze in the 50m rifle prone contest - and in winning the team event she now has four medals from Doha 2006.

Wang said afterwards: "I expected I can get into the first three. But I feel surprised and happy that I can get a gold medal. Because nobody knows what is going on during the final. It is hard to guess. "

China's Gan Lin won his second individual gold of the Games, scooping the men's 10m running target mixed competition.

Gan, winner of yesterday's 10m running target event and runner-up in this event at the World Championship in Zagreb, scored 389 over the two stages at an average of 9.725, finishing nine points ahead of silver medallist Bakhtiyar Ibrayev, and 13 in front of bronze winner Andrey Gurov, both of Kazakhstan.

In the Doha Asian Games badminton competition continued at Aspire hall today, Thailand's Poompat Sapkulchananart beat Sri Lanka's Dinuka Karunaratne in the en's single pre-quarter finals by two sets to nil 21-10, 21-13.

Sri Lanka team finished last out of 15 teams which clashed for honours in the men's road cycling team trial. Riding along the Al-Khor Road course, the Lankan team clocked an unimpressive one hour, 40 minutes and 44.05 seconds to be placed 15th. Kazakhstan came first in 1:24.40.67.

DOHA, Wednesday.