Sri Lankan badminton player Viren Nettasinghe was beaten by Spaniard Pablo Abian (21-9, 21-19) in their Men’s Single Group stage second match at the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Earlier, Malaysian Zia Lee had gotten the better of the Lankan shuttler (21-14, 21-12) in the latter’s first match.

With these losses Nettasinghe’s journey in France having became the youngest-ever Sri Lankan sportsman to directly qualify for the quadrennial event comes to an end.

He was also one of four athletes to book their berth at the Games purely based on World Ranking and subsequently he was named co-flag bearer of the team alongside female javelin thrower Dilhani Lekamge.

In the meantime, Sri Lanka swim ace Kyle Abeysinghe had finished eighth in his 100 m freestyle heat clocking 51.42 seconds.

The 16 swimmers with the best timing qualified to compete in the Men’s 100 m freestyle semifinals. Abeysinghe thus became the second Lankan swimmer to be eliminated from the heats following the exit of compatriot Ganga Seneviratne.

Overall he was placed 54th out of 79 swimmers in the event and he too like shuttler Viren Nettasinghe will return to Colombo shortly being unable to proceed further in their respective sports.