While as many as 86 Sri Lankan athletes are struggling unsuccessfully for Gold at the current Commonwealth Games in Australia, a little known boy from the backwoods of Ambalangoda has given the island its first ever Gold medal at the Asian Age Group Chess championship that concluded in Thailand.
Sasith Nipun Piyamantha, a student of Dharmasoka College Ambalangoda, scored 6.5 out of 9 to prove that he is so precious a bet and one of the most promising young chess players in the island.
Priyamantha surprised a strong field of 34 contenders, eight of whom were ranked higher than him when the tournament began. He defeated Altansukh Ganbold (Mongolia), fellow Sri Lankan Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage, Subrota Biswas (Bangladesh) and Vatsal Singhania (India) while drawing with Hsu Hsuan-Ming (Taipei), Sankalp Gupta and V.S. Raahul (India), Abdisalimov Abdimalik (Uzbekistan) and Hakemi Arman (Iran).
Although Singhania, Gupta and Priyamantha finished on 6.5 points, the Ambalangoda schoolboy pipped the other two on the tie-break, giving Sri Lanka her proudest moment in this most prestigious chess event in the Asian region.