Volleyball: Eight men and women players for Asian Beach Championship in Thailand

The Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation will send eight players (men and women) to take part in two Asian Beach Volleyball Championships to be held in Thailand from April 9 to 16. 

The competition is being conducted by the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC). 

Over 20 countries are scheduled to take part in the event. 

The first tournament is the Nakohon SI Open (men and women) where two women and two men will take part from April 9 to 11. 

The other contest is the Seventeenth Samila Open (two men and two women) under 25 from April 14 to 16 will participate. 

Prasanna Udayakumara, the Head Coach , a former Beach Volleyball player says that Sri Lanka started playing beach volleyball in2003 and so far Sri Lanka has won an Asian level Bronze medal through Asanka Pradeep and Malintha Yapa in 2012. 

“Sri Lanka is fielding two strong teams and we expect to win medals in the open categories (men and women). The Sri Lanka team was selected from a pool of 21 players and have been training for about two months at the Heyantuduwa NYSC Training Centre and the Negombo beach,” said Udayakumara. 

The Coach of the Under -25 team is Mahesh Perera who is also a national level Beach Volleyball player 

The Sri Lanka team will leave for the contests on April 6 at 7.00am. 

Sri Lanka Beach Volleyball Association’s Senior Vice President Commodore Sanath Uthpala was in charge of the training. 

Open Men: Pubudu Ekanayake (AF), Asanka Pradeep Kumara (AF) 

Women: Deepika Lalani Gunewardena (Air Force), Sagari Gunasinghe (Navy)

Men Under-25: Anjana Sandeepa (Army), Ranga Prabath (NYSC)

Women Under-25: Ruwani Thaksala (AF), Kasun Tharaka (Navy)

Men’s Head Coach: Prasanna Udayakumara
 
Under-25 Coach: Mahesh Perera
 
Manager: C. Ratnamudali 

Sports Ministry Observer: Dhanapala Jayapathna