Ambepitiya completes sprint double

Chris DHAMBARAGE in Pune

Promising athlete Shehan Ambepitiya completed a unique sprint double as he snatched the gold medal in the men’s 200 metres final with another dazzling performance on the fourth day of the third Commonwealth Youth Games continued at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune yesterday.

Ambepitiya who has already crowned himself as the fastest athlete in the meet produced a repeat performance to return a superb timing of 21.27 seconds while competing in lane four during a breathtaking finish against his nearest rival Ray Williams of Australia.

In fact Williams went into the final having gained a massive psychological advantage after returning the best timing (21.52 seconds) among the eight competitors at the completion of the three semi-finals.

In contrast Ambepitiya had earlier clocked the third best timing of 21.67 seconds in the third semi-final event which he went on to win in a relaxed and more convincing manner despite running against the wind.

But the real fact was that he had preserved all his energy for the more important final and proved his class with a determined effort that helped Sri Lanka to win their third gold medal in the Games and move further up in the medals tally.

Ambepitiya looked calm and relaxed as he entered the final which was of course marred by two fault starts by Antonio Infantino from England and India’s Kumar Mallick respectively. He made the perfect start once again and consolidated his position after the first 100 metres before adding the finishing touches in a spectacular manner.

Williams managed to take the silver medal with a timing of 21.30 seconds followed by India’s Kumar Mallick returning a time of 21.33 seconds.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s Shanaka Ganegodage did well to reach the quarter-finals of the men’s singles event in the table tennis tournament before losing to India’s Sathiyan Gnasekaran 4-1.

Even then Shanaka had the opportunity of stretching his more fancied opponent to a certain extent especially during the second set which he won in a tie breaker by a close margin of 15-13.

He showed a great amount of promise during the second set after having earlier conceded the opener 11-3. But he was unable to maintain the same momentum in the remaining three sets while going down 11-5, 11-8 and 11-6 respectively.

Earlier Ganegodage had the better of Chin Nicholas from Montserrat in the pre quarter-finals 11-8, 11-9, 11-6, 11-9. The Chef de Mission of the Sri Lankan contingent Rajiva Wijetunga who is also the President of the Table Tennis Association of Sri Lanka said that this was a splendid effort and the first time that a Sri Lankan paddler had reached the last eight in a tournament of this nature.

In addition Sri Lanka’s Nayanakantha Wijesekera was knocked out from the pre quarterfinals in the men’s singles badminton championship. The eighth seed was up against it from the beginning and suffered a straight set 21-12, 21-7 defeat at the hands of the powerful Ethan Haggo of New Zealand.

Meanwhile in the swimming championship Sri Lanka’s medal prospect Andrew Abeysinghe was pushed into the seventh place while competing in the men’s 200 metres back stroke event final. Earlier he did well to clock two minutes 08.32 seconds in the heats while competing in lane three.

(Pune, Thursday)
 

The medals table (top 10)
Country		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total

India		22	15	12	49 
Australia	13	11	18	42 
England		13	6	6	25 
Canada		4	8	8	20 
South Africa	3	8	5	16 
Scotland	3	3	6	12 
Kenya		3	0	2	5 
Sri Lanka	3	0	0	3 
Malaysia	2	3	5	10 
Singapore	1	3	2	6    
   
Note: Tabulated under country, gold, silver, bronze and
total medals.