Asian Youth Games, a great success

The closing ceremony of the first-ever Asian Youth Games was held at Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore. It brought to a close 11 days of keen competition conducted at ten different venues. The 41 member Sri Lankan contingent took part in five different disciplines - athletics, swimming, table tennis, athletics, FIBA 33 and beach volleyball.
Heshan Bandara Unamboowe was the last to compete for Sri Lanka when he took part in the 50m backstroke event worked off at Singapore Sports School on Sunday. Unfortunately he was disqualified in the second heat due to a false start and did not face the starter in the 100m free-style event.
China who emerged as the new champion in the world sports arena at last year’s Olympics, dominated the Asian Youth Games and went on to clinch first place in the Games with 25 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze medals. South Korea is in the second slot with 20 gold, 17 silver and 17 bronze medals. Thailand was third with 11 gold, 7 silver medal and 3 bronze medals. Sri Lanka managed to secure the 16th position with one silver and two bronze. Out of the 41 Asian countries only 21 managed to win a medal in any of the events.
With the end of the athletics events, most of the sports personalities had returned to their respective countries and as the games reached the final stage the Swimming events still managed to attract a fair crowd. The football final held on Sunday saw the Republic of Korea triumphing over North Korea by 2 goals to nil at the Jalan Besar Stadium. Though the games did not attract a large number of spectators in general, the football final was quite the opposite and was well attented.
Overall the Asian Youth Games was a success, particularly as Singapore was organising such a mega sporting event for the first time and they did justice to the Olympic Asian Committee for the faith placed on them. This will also be their trial run in preparing for the next year Youth Olympics.
The next edition of the Youth Asian Games will be held in 2013 at Incheon, South Korea.