Visakha swimmer Ganga keeps head above water to achieve results
Visakha Vidyalaya swimmer Ganga Senevirathne belongs to the rare breed of sports stars who balances education and sports and strives hard to achieve glory despite not being born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
One of six students who sat the G.C.E. (O/L) examination while representing Sri Lanka at the 13th South Asian Games (SAG) in Nepal in December, Ganga achieved the distinction of winning the most number of medals - three silver and one bronze - from this group in addition to obtaining four As, three Bs and two ‘C’ passes.
"I am really pleased with my performance and all my hard work has produced excellent results in both sports and academic level. I am satisfied with my results since I had to manage my swimming and exams," said Ganga, who aims to do Business Management after completing her Advanced Level studies in the Commerce stream.
"It was really tough. I wrote my papers after finishing my events. Swimming finished at 6.30pm, after that I had to go write papers. The Science paper I finished at midnight and Maths paper I had to write till 1.30 in the morning. Then I had to come to the hotel, had a small nap and had another paper at 8.30am," she recalled.
She does not hail from a swimming background but is blessed with abundant talent pursuing her swimming with unmatched dedication after following her elder sister Thomali, an accomplished swimmer at national level, into the pool at the age of 12.
"She is a very talented young lady and can go far with dedication and attention to quality training. She needs to believe in herself and push her work ethic to get the best out of her exceptional talent," said her coach at Killer Whale Aquatics, Manoj Abeysinghe, who was head coach of the Sri Lanka team SAG where Ganga took part in seven events.
Her silver medals came in the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle relay, 4x200m Freestyle relay and 4x100m Medley relay while clinching an individual bronze medal in the 200m Backstroke event. However, she was disappointed not to win a medal in her pet event – the 100m Backstroke, where she achieved her personal best time of 1 minute 06.80 seconds.
"I was planning on winning the 100m backstroke also but unfortunately I couldn’t give all my energy to that event. I failed in my best event," said Ganga, who burst into the national limelight when she shattered Olympian Kimiko Raheem's two records in the 200m Backstroke and 100m Freestyle events at the 45th Schools Swimming Championship in 2017.
She made her international debut at the 9th Asian Age Group Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2017 and also took part in the Malaysia Invitational Age Group Swimming Championship the following year. She had a hectic international schedule last year competing in the ISF (International School Sport Federation) World School Games in Rio de Jenairo, Brazil in May where she was placed 11th in 100m Backstroke, Singapore National Swimming Championships in June where she got ninth place in the 100m Backstroke and the World Junior Swimming Championships Budapest, Hungary in August where she was selected as the female swimmer with highest FINA points participating in three events.
As one of the top five female swimmers in Sri Lanka, she was in contention for selection to participate at the 18th FINA World Swimming Championships in Gwangju, Korea but missed out since only the top two were chosen.
"2019 was a really challenging year in my swimming career and my school life both. Half of this year I wasn't in school that much as I had many overseas competitions to participate. So it was really challenging to cover my school work. But at the end I was able to do both my sport and studies really well. Everyone asked me one question, ‘are you happy with your results in O/L?' I would like to answer this question here. I know how hard it was for me to achieve what I have achieved now. No one would believe that I finished writing my O/L Mathematics paper at 2.00am but I had to do it in Nepal as I had a tight schedule on that day. So I'm really happy about my O/L results," she stated, expressing her gratitude to all those who supported her.
Ganga has a dream of qualifying for the Olympics.