South Asian Port Games conclude tomorrow

Bernard Perera

Indian Beach vollyballers with a fine performance bagged the first gold medal at the inaugural South Asian Ports Games beating Colombo Port in straight sets at the Negombo beach on Sunday evening.

Lankan team comprising of U.S.V.K. Madusanka and T. Charinda Adikari playing against J. Livingston and Paul Joseph got off to a flying start with a three point lead. But the two Indians making no mistakes at this stage fought back to equalise at 7-7. There services were excellent, at times the Lankan duo too made good attempt to collect points but failed to catch up with the Indians. In this set they almost came closer to equalising at 19-20 but the Indians made it to the final point to finish the set 21-19.

The second set saw the Indians take a firm grip from the word go and maintained it till they gained the set at 21-18 to win the match and the gold medal while Sri Lanka ended as runners-up to bag the silver and Pakistan took the bronze.

Indian bagged their second gold when they trounced Sri Lanka’s Airport and Aviation Services team by five goals to nil in their Hockey encounter which was played at the Police Park, Bambalapitiya.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority netballers managed to win the first gold medal for Sri Lanka when they outplayed Airport and Aviation Services 44 points to 10.

Billiard

Sri Lanka’s national billiards champion K.H. Sirisoma added a another feather to his cap by winning the gold medal at this games yesterday beating Pakistani’s Mohamed Yousuf four frames to one at the Billiards Headquarters table. The bronze medal too went to Pakistan’s K. Agar.

The final of the billiards was played over seven frames each set ending at 100 points. Sirisoma won the first comfortably, but the Pakistani made a strong comeback to take the second set to come to equal terms.

Sirisoma using all his experience gained throughout his career spanning for nearly 25 years got his act together and made no mistakes.

This gave him a lot of confidence and won the third set come to the lead. From there onwards there was no stopping for Sirisoma. He continued his good form and completed the following two frames too in his favour and the match to bag the gold which also became the second for Sri Lanka.

volleyball

Today Sri Lanka Ports Authority will take on India in the final of the volleyball championship. In the semi finals Sri Lanka Ports team defeated Airport and Aviation Services team three sets to one while the Indian combined team overcame Maldives also with the same margin to reach the final.

The third play off between Maldives Airport team and Airport Aviation Sri Lanka team will be played today at Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium. The carrom tourney ended yesterday at the Sri Lanka Carrom Federation premises with India taking gold after defeating Colombo Port in the final. Trinco Port team had to satisfy with the bronze medal.

Sapog Games soccer championships too will come to an end today at Vincent Dias Stadium in Badulla. The semi finals are scheduled for 9 am and the final will be played at 3 pm at the same venue.

The other finals to be worked off today are Table Tennis at STC Indoor Stadium, Mt. Lavinia, Cricket at Colts Ground, Badminton at Mt. Lavinia and Tennis at Trans Asia Hotel Courts.

The first ever South Asian Port Games’ curtain comes down tomorrow with the awards ceremony and the closing ceremony.