Lankans return empty handed after 28 years

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from China

Sri Lanka’s final medal hopes in men’s 4 x 400m and women’s 4 x 100m relays were shattered on day 15 of the 16th Asian Games here at the Aoti Main Stadium under lights today.

This is the first time in 28 years of the Games history that a Sri Lanka contingent is returning home empty handed – without a single medal. The last time that Sri Lanka ran medal less in the Asian Games history was way back in 1982 at New Delhi Games. That included that lean run of 24 years from 1974 Teheran up to 1998 without a single gold medal.

Sri Lanka team, anchored by two-time medalist Prasanna Sampath Amarasekara, finished fifth with a timing of three minutes and 07.97 seconds in men’s 4 x 400m final, won by Saudi Arabia clocking 3:02.30, their best ever. Japan won the silver, followed by China, India and Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s women’s 4 x 100m team did not finish the race and were out of contention. Coming first for the gold medal was Thailand clocking 44.09 seconds while a season’s best 44.22 gave China the silver medal. But China extended their dominance to relay events to win the gold in men’s 4 x 100m returning a timing of 38.78 – a new Chinese national record.

Bahrain won gold medals in two long distance finals worked off today -Bilisuma Galassa (a personal best 27:32.72 in men’s 10,000m) and Mimi Beleti Geberegeiorges (a personal best 15:15.59 in women’s 5,000m).

The other gold medallists in athletics produced on the penultimate day of the 45-nation Games were Uzbekistan’s Svetlana Radzivil (a personal beat 1.95m in women’s high jump), Japan’s Yukufumi Murakami (a personal best 83.15m in men’s javelin throw), China’s Yanxi Li (a season’s best 16.94m in men’s triple jump) and Saudi Arabia’s Sultan Alhabashi (a season’s best 20.57m in men’s shot putt). India accounted for its 13th medal at the Guangzhou Games when their women’s 4 x 400m team came first in the relay event with a timing of three minutes and 29.02 seconds.

Bangladesh wins cricket gold

In the absence of hot favourites Pakistan and Sri Lanka which suffered shock defeats in the semi finals and India not fielding a team, Bangladesh made the best use of the ideal conditions to win the Twenty20 cricket gold at the Asian Games.

They beat minnows Afghanistan by five wickets in today’s final.

Batting first, inexperienced Afghan team made 118 for 8 in 20 overs.

Bangladesh made 119 for 5 in 19.3 overs to win the game with three balls to spare.

Hosts China raised towards the magical 200 gold medal mark and their women’s team beat Uzbekistan in the final to take the gold medal in the team event. GUNANZHOU, Friday