Aussies trounce Lanka 73/0

Sampath Bandara reporting from Australia

C'WEALTH GAMES: Australia beat Sri Lanka at the Telstra Dome 73-0 in a Preliminary Round rugby sevens Group match 3 of the 18th Commonwealth Games.

In the first half, Australia led 31-0 and scored 11 tries in the entire game.

The Rugby sevens will be played over the first two days of competition at the Telstra Dome with 16 Nations Competing in four pools of four teams.

The pool matches were played on the first day (yesterday) with the two leading teams from each group going through to the knockout and medal round games on day two (today) Sri Lanka is in Pool C with England, Australia and Cook Island.

England beat Sri Lanka 61-0 in Second Rugby 7s match at Telstra Dome.

Raheem Mayumi of Sri Lanka has entered the Semifinal of women's Aquatics swimming (women's 50m Breast stroke) She clocked 35.40 Seconds. In the Semi-final she clocked 35.63 and came 8th.

Sri Lanka had several wins in Badminton events yesterday. Thilini Sudhara Jayasinghe beat Northern Ireland's Lisa Lynas 21-9, 21-12 points. Niluka Karunaratne beat Northern Ireland's Alexander Sim 21-11 and 21-13, in Mixed Team Preliminary Round Niluka Karunaratne and Renu Hettiarachchige won 21-11 and 21-8 points.

Thilina Piyadasa, Indika Prasad and Gihan Liyanage won their Preliminary Round matches. Thilina Piyadasa beat Tuvalu's Alan Resture 3-0; 11-9, 11-5, and 11-2. Indika Prasad beat Tuvalu's Napetori Tioti 3-0; 11-3, 11-4 and 11-1 Points and Gihan Liyanage beat Tuvalu's Teokila Maleka 3-0; 11-3, 11-7 and 11-3 points.

Squash competition saw keen competition. Tehani Guruge of Museaus College Colombo and 18 year old Japan and Singapore open Champion was defeated by world class played Northern Ireland's Madeline Perry. Shahier Razik and Navin Samarsinghe too lost their matches.

Cook Islands inflicted Sri Lanka's third defeat with an easy 47-0 victory in sevens. Cook Islan raced to a 19-0 lead at the break, through tries from Koiatu (2) and Vardey celebrating his second try with a backflip much to the delight of the big crowd.

Koiatu scored his third just after the break extending the lead to 26-0 before further tries from Patrick Mavi-Kapi, Kevin Iro and Nathan Robinson.

The first gold medal went to Indian women's 48 kg weight lifting Kunjorani Devi Nameirakgam.

(Melbourne Thursday)