Woeful performance by our women volleyball players
The Sri Lanka women’s volleyball team returned to the island without a single win. They left the island to take part in the 18th Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championships in Tianjin, China.In the competition they played five teams and lost all of them. In the rankings of the contest, where 14 teams participated, Sri Lanka was ranked 14th. In the competition which was conducted by the Asian Volleyball Confederation. Sixteen countries were originally scheduled to take part but with Fiji and Turkmenistan pulling out of the contest, only 14 teams contested. Sri Lanka who were in B Group, lost to Hong Kong 0-3, lost to Chinese Taipei 0-3 and in the Classification Round, lost to Australia 2-3 (22-25, 19-25, 25-19, 25-16 and 20-22). Lost to Philippines 1-2 (14-25, 25-19, 18-25 and 18-25).
In the 2013 version of the competition held in Thailand 16 teams’ participated Sri Lanka were placed 15th. Sri Lanka obtained one win here which was against Myanmar. The championship title at the China competition was won by China who beat South Korea in the final by 3 sets 0. This is the 13th time that China had bagged the championship title.
In the last edition of this contest Thailand emerged champions and this time they were able to secure third place. India were placed 10th, overtaking Sri Lanka by four places. When players were questioned about their dismal performance in China, they said that they left for the competition without proper training or planning and this was the end result of that.