Golden feats by Sri Lankan sportsmen and women

Sri Lanka had its own share in the international sports arena. Our sportsmen and women had a rich harvest of gold, silver and bronze medals at Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and South Asian Games.

Umanga Surendra and Susanthika Jayasinghe

Mayumi Raheem

Sri Lanka hosted its biggest ever sporting event in August. There were a total of 20 disciplines at the 10th South Asian Games in Colombo. Sri Lanka did well to secure a total of 37 gold medals. In addition, the host nation won many silver and bronze medals.

Teenagers Mayumi Raheem and Andrew Abeysinghe kept the Lion flag fluttering high at the South Asian Games. Fourteen-year-old Raheem bagged a record haul of ten medals, which included three gold, five silver and two bronze medals. Fifteen-year-old Abeysinghe made an eleventh hour entry to the team and justified that move with two gold medals.

Incidentally, both the swimmers were unfortunate victims of selection blunders which were rectified on a special directive by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Weightlifter Chinthana Vidanage achieved a rare feat for Sri Lanka. He bagged that much needed weightlifting gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia early this year. He also maintained his superb form in bagging the gold medal in his pet event at the South Asian Games too.

Sri Lanka fielded its largest ever contingent for the 15th Asian Games in Doha this month. Star woman sprinter, returning to track after a strong viral flu, did well to secure silver medal in women's 100m and bronze medal in women's 200m. Earlier at the 10th South Asian Games, she completed a golden triple - winning women's 100, 200m and 4 x 100m relay.

Sprinter Rohan Pradeep Kumara also achieved a similar feat. Sri Lanka's men's 4 x 400m relay team also won a bronze medal at the Doha Asian Games.

Sri Lanka also won several gold medals in cycling, shooting, karate and wushu at South Asian Games. The performance of our cyclists were even more creditable with 'Rajarata' lass Sriyalatha Wickremasinghe performing beautifully with her aggressive riding.

Our national cricket team did well to draw their two vital overseas Test series - in England and New Zealand, by the identical margin of one-all.

The Lankans proved that they not only could win Tests at home but on foreign soil as well. Losing Marvan Atapattu's captaincy could not stop Sri Lanka cricket team's progress. They whitewashed England 5-0 during their last summer tour in a completely one sided one day international series. But they failed to make it to the final rounds of the ICC Mini World Cup.

The back injury of veteran opener Atapattu gave a good exposure to Jayawardene as captain. Jayawardene not only rose to the occasion to raise the spirit of the team but also ended on top by winning the top ICC award for the best captain. Spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan continued to make the life hard for the batsmen in the international arena.

He is well set to follow Australian Shane Warne as the second man in the world to complete 700 wickets in Test cricket.

With Warne already announcing his retirement, Muralitharan could regain his place as the highest wicket taker in Test cricket during the forthcoming international season.