Yet another calendar year has come to an end. It's high time we take a stock on the progress we have made in Sri Lanka's sports arena during the year 2006, which was of great importance to us as the country hosted the all-important South Asian Games.

Compared to the preparations we made and the real effort we put in towards the 10th South Asian Games in Colombo, Sri Lanka's harvest of 37 gold medals is reasonable. Though we could not better our all-time best SA Games record of 44 gold medals won at the fifth Games in Colombo, 1991, Sri Lanka fared well within its capabilities to secure the third place behind India and Pakistan in the final medal standings.

In most of the 19 disciplines we competed at the eight-nation Games, Sri Lanka did not make adequate preparations. When one singles out athletics - the show piece of the Games, our achievement of 12 gold medals was creditable. We did not train our athletes in an organised manner with a long-term plan. Nevertheless, they made the best use of the home conditions to win medals.

Soccer has been a sport in which Sri Lanka has experienced a lean run during the past few years. But Sri Lanka soccer team did well to emerge runners up and take the silver medal at the South Asian Games. They narrowly lost to Pakistan in the final.

Thanks to some champion stuff by teenagers Mayumi Raheem and Andrew Abeysinghe, Sri Lanka had its own share in swimming. 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 corrected on a special directive by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Under the presidency of Minister Dilan Perera, volleyball has shown a marked improvement. One can not also forget the financial backing given by Dialog Telekom to boost Sri Lanka's nation al sport. Their encouragement and support inspired Sri Lanka's men and women teams win medals at South Asian Games.

Earlier this year, Sri Lanka sent a strong contingent for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. It was a sweet experience for Chinthana Vidanage who brought home a gold medal in weightlifting. He was also able to underline his dominance in the region when he followed that feat with another gold medal at the South 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.

Despite an exemplarily administrative set up which offered comprehensive training with excellent coaching and foreign exposure, our boxers painted a poor picture at the South Asian Games. A few controversial decisions by Pakistani referees too contributed to our misery in the ring sport this year.

Even then, there can't be any excuses for their miserable performance at the Asian Games in Qatar earlier this month.

Though we fielded a record contingent of nearly 300 competitors and officials to Doha Asian Games, Sri Lanka managed just a solitary silver medal and a couple of bronze, that too in athletics. Sri Lanka competed in as many as 24 disciplines out of a total of 39 that was included in the Games proper.

But if not for courageous effort by Susanthika Jayasinghe and last minute choice Asoka Jayasundara, Sri Lanka contingent would have returned empty handed from Doha.

Though there were many critics, Jayasinghe's courage to get out of a hospital bed and win two medals within a fortnight at Asian Games level is a creditable achievement. It's only Jayasinghe who has been capable of performing such miraculous acts to boost Sri Lanka's track and field image.

It's a pity that compatriot Damayanthi Darsha could not make it to defend her women's 400m title, which she held from Bangkok 1998. Had she competed, she would have easily won the gold in her pet event.

Sri Lanka cut a sorry figure in most of the events they competed at Asian Games. Especially, the performances of Sri Lanka in archery, sailing, swimming, karate, wushu, badminton, chess and table tennis have been disappointing.

Sri Lanka's richest sports governing body - Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) continued to run with its interim administration. But 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.

Overall, we can not be too happy with our sports achievements during the year. But with available resources and the least backing from the Sports Ministry, our sportsmen and women have made a reasonable effort to maintain Sri Lanka's pride in the international sporting arena.