Sri Lankan ruggerites arrive in Doha

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from Qatar

ASIAN GAMES: Sri Lanka's rugby team arrived here to compete at the 15th Asian Games seven-a-side competition which starts here on December 10. The team looked cheerful as they checked in at the Athletes Village.

The Lankan team has been strengthened with the return of veteran full back Nalaka Weerakkody, who has been included in the eleventh hour an a replacement for an injured player.

However, the prevailing wet weather did not permit the players to engage in their normal workouts. In fact, Doha is experiencing its heaviest rainfall in 42 years as most competition programs were affected by inclement weather.

Some of the Doha roads were flooded as there is no underground drainage system because Doha normally experiences only two days of rain per year.

Sri Lanka teams chef-de-mission, Dian Gomes finally checked in at the Athletes Village as he was forced to delay his departure from Colombo as he was suffering from flu.

However, Gomes has arrived to give his usual able leadership to the Lankan contingent, which had Maxwell de Silva as the acting chief until now.

Sri Lanka rugby team is down to play India and China in their qualifying round matches of the seven-a-side competition on Sunday (10). The championship will commence with a game between South Korea and Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka continued their poor run in most of the disciplines. The taekwondo competition saw Sri Lanka's Priyangika Gomes going down to Turkmenistan's Gulchehra Rahimova 1-7 in women's 51kg quarter finals while her Lankan team mate Sugath Waraduwaga was beaten by Batyrbek Yestavletov of Kazakhstan 0-8 in men's 58kg event quarter finals.

At the tennis championship of the 15th Asian Games, Sri Lanka Davis Cup player Harshana Godamanna looked completely off colour in going down to Uzbekistan's Sarvar Ikramov in straight sets 2-6, 0-6. Ikramov served six aces in crushing the Lankan lad in 56 minutes.

At the Doha Sport City, Sri Lanka pair of Jude Mahesh Perera and Dhammika Rohan Silva beat Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Vorobyev and Alexey Sidorenko 9-21, 19-21.

At the Doha Golf Club, Sri Lanka national champion Muthun Perera was placed joint 27th after the first day's proceedings.

Perera with a net 73, is tied with seven others after the round one. Heading the standings after the opening day with a 66 is Taiwan's Cheng Tsung.

The other members of the Sri Lanka team fared well behind - Tissa Chandradasa (75) at joint 35th, P. Kandasamy (75), also 35th and Amrit de Soysa (80) at joint 57th.

However, it was South Korea that took the lead in the team competition after the opening round with a total of 205. Sri Lanka is placed 10th out of 17 teams with 223.

Nineteen year-old Kang Sung Hoon leads Korea's men's team and is a strong medal contender for the individual event, while team mates Ryu So Yeon and Choi He Yong are more than capable of topping the leaderboard in the women's individual event.

Kang recently shot eight under par in the individual event after four rounds at the 2006 Eisenhower Trophy Men's World Amateur Championships in South Africa to finish sixth overall.

At the Doha Sailing Club, Sri Lanka's Devin De Alwis Gunawardena came tenth in men's optimist race 7 while Janaka Welandagoda finished tenth in men's laser radial open race 8. Akshan Jirasinghe was placed sixth in the men's Laser 4.7 open race 8. In the Mistral heavy race 6, Sri Lanka's Priyantha Gunawardena came seventh.

Friday, Doha.