Sports

Sports

Soldiers take Clifford Cup boxing title
By M. Shamil Amit
Army ‘A’ regained the Clifford Cup Boxing title when they ended the championship with 37 points as against 26 to last year’s champions Slimline BC. But the champions were able to win only four finals from the eight boxers that had entered the final held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium. Slimline BC on the other hand had four winners out of four in the final.

The defending champions fielded a depleted side with four of their top boxers in the injured list namely Manju Wanniarachchi, W.R.M. Wekadapola, R.M. Ratnayake and S.I. Kumara who were all in the injured list. But four of the five boxers won their respective bouts with two of them defeating their Army opponents.

The two boxers A.K.G.K. Sameera and B.Wickramasinghe outscored their opponents M.A.N. Bandara and K.N. Jayakody in the Featherweight Under 57kg and Bantamweight Under 54kg categories with the referee stopping the fight after two rounds. M.I. Hansar of Army ‘A”who was favorite to take the Super Heavyweight over 91 kg was beaten by Navy’s D.P.M.H Dharmasiri in a close fight.

The Army winners were H.M.S.P. Wanninayake in the Heavyweight Under 91kg, L.H. Weeratunge in the Light Heavyweight Under 81kg, P.R.D.A.Fernando in Middleweight Under 75kg and A,G,N, Bandara in the Light Welterweight Under 64kg who was virtually given a walkover by another Army boxer.

Army’s K.S. Jeewantha was disqualified in the Welterweight Under 69kg for punching his Navy opponent M.G.C.M. Jayawardena after he was signaled to stop the bout. But even then the Navy boxer was in the lead. Slimline boxers R.M.U. Bandara and T.B. Harsha Kumara took the Lightweight Under 60kg and Light Flyweight Under 48kg.

Unichela BC’s K.A.C.N. Alexander outfoxed his opponent C.D.S. Herath of Police in the Flyweight Under 51kg which earned him the best boxers’ award while Herath who gave his opponent some anxious moments was adjudged the best loser. The four day Clifford Cup Boxing Championship was conducted by the Amateur Boxing Association of Sri Lanka with the chief guest at the closing ceremonies being Inthikab Muhajireen, CEO, American & Effird Lanka (Pvt) Ltd who gave away the awards.

Top