Sri Lanka’s presence at the 11th South Asian Games in Dhaka was hardly felt during the first few days as India played according to the script and dominated the Games with a huge haul of gold and silver medals. By mid day yesterday, India had extended its Gold medal tally to an unassailable 40 Golds against a total of 16 Golds shared by second placed Pakistan, third placed Bangladesh, fourth placed Sri Lanka and fifth placed Afghanistan.

Despite being placed fourth in the medals table, Sri Lanka had one thing to be happy as their athletes showed improvement in one of the disciplines, weightlifting, by bettering the last edition’s single gold into a double this year.

As expected, Chinthana Vidanage defended his Gold in the 69kg category of the weightlifting championship after Sri Lanka Air Force athlete Kamal Bandara won country’s first Gold medal of the Games winning the 69kg weight category.

In the last edition, Vidanage was the sole Gold medal winner for Sri Lanka but Bandara’s performance at Dhaka this time has given due recognition to the sport as it has become the only discipline in which the country has shown improvement during the last four years.

With just three days to go, (Games end on 9th) in the 11th edition of the South Asian Games, it is unlikely that any other country could challenge the present medals table leader India who has been sports’ superpower in the region.

Although it was expected from the start that India will dominate the Games, Sri Lanka had some expectations of dominating in some of the disciplines.

Sri Lanka dominated cycling when the event was held in Colombo in 2006 with only Pakistan claiming a Gold to prevent the hosts from making a clean sweep of Golds. But in Dhaka, India turned tables and took under their belt three gold medals in cycling. If not for the impressive performance of Janaka Hemantha in the 170km road race, Sri Lanka would have returned without a single Gold.

India never let her fancied events to be dominated by any other country. In badminton, they swept the board bagging all seven Golds, and dominated Kabaddi winning both Golds to be had. Their marksmen shot better than anyone else in fifteen shooting events to get away with 15 Golds. While Bangladesh and Pakistan shared the rest of the Golds available in shooting, Sri Lanka managed to bag two silvers in the team events of the 25m Pistol shooting and 50m rifle team event.

Sri Lanka’s judokas could not realise their dream of winning a Gold and they had to settle for three silvers and a bronze. In badminton, the highest the Lankan shuttlers could achieve were two silver medals, which were in the men’s and women’s team events.

Sri Lanka are far from winning the number of Golds they could win in the last edition but there is some hope with their swimmers and athletes now gearing up for their fancied events, swimming and track-and-field events in the SAG 2010.

Mineka Karunarathne’s Gold in the 50m breaststroke event on Friday, would trigger an enthusiasm in the Sri Lankan contingent to do well despite the absence of last year’s heroine Mayumi Raheem in the swimming championship.