IIT win Basketball Gold at UITM Sports Fiesta 2016
The Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) emerged winners at the 11th University International Technology Mara (UITM) International Sports Fiesta 2016 held in Selangor, Malaysia recently. IIT won Gold in the Basketball championship, defeating Diliman College University, Philippines, 66-54 in a closely fought final game, becoming the first local university to win Gold at an international Basketball event. The universities and institutes that participated are: Diliman College University-Philippines, University Trisakthi- Indonesia, SLIIT- Sri Lanka, Philippines College Foundation University- Philippines, Perbanas Institute- Indonesia, Sindhi College University- India, University Technology Mara- Malaysia, Singapore Management University- Singapore and IIT- Sri Lanka.
Sportsmen and Sportswomen from universities and higher education institutes of several South Asian countries participated in Rugby, Futsal, Tenpin Bowling, Badminton, Tennis, Basketball, Table Tennis and Netball. The IIT Basketball Squad: Minul Wimalagunaratne (Captain), Sameera Senarath, Gayan Andrew, Sandeepa Ratnayake, Tarindu Fernando, Tushan Dharmasena, Lakshan Samarasinghe, Kasun Chanaka Ratnayake, Pramod Kumara, Rajitha Tennakoon, Kulamina Sanjeewa and Andrew Wijesuriya, “Our Basketball team embarked on this tour with much optimism and confidence based on their performance last year.
I would like to thank the coach and team consisting of present national players on their excellent performance. Their hard work and commitment has led to their outstanding results in such a relatively short period to win the first ever international Gold medal championship from any format of the game, in the history of university sports in this country,” said IIT Group Sports & Wellness Consultant, Chinthaka De Silva. At last year’s UITM International Sports Fiesta, IIT participated in Rugby and Basketball and were Runner-up in Rugby and 2nd Runner-up in Basketball. IIT also won the Fastbreak 2016 Basketball tournament to add to the recent successes.