Lanka hails Australia over 2018 hosting

COLOMBO, Nov 12 (AFP): Sri Lanka's president congratulated Australia Saturday for being chosen as the home of the 2018 Commonwealth Games and said his nation would aim to do well at the games despite a failed bid to host them. "I congratulate Australia and at the same time I want to thank the private sector of Sri Lanka which contributed to our very credible and impressive bid," President Mahinda Rajapakse told the agency as he returned from the Maldives. Gold Cost beat Sri Lanka's Hambantota in a vote at the Commonwealth Games Federation's general assembly in the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis, with the result announced Friday evening. Rajapakse said his home constituency of Hambantota, in Sri Lanka's south, had proposed a green-field development to host the Games, but the loss in favour of Queensland's Gold Coast would not hold back the island's athletes. "This should serve as an added encouragement for them to go to Gold Coast and do very well," Rajapakse said. The 2010 Games in Delhi proved troubled, with the sporting headlines eclipsed by venue delays, shoddy construction and budget overruns that tripled the cost of the event to $6 billion.