St. Joseph’s and Mahamaya defend swim titles

St. Joseph’s College, Colombo and Mahamaya Girls School from the hill capital, Kandy once again proved their dominance in schools swimming by defending their championship titles for the second year in succession at the Sri Lanka Schools’ Swimming Championship 2016 concluded at the Sugathadasa Swimming Complex over last weekend.

Josephians had to fight all way to the top in the Boys segment as Royal College, Colombo was closely behind them who missed the target in reaching the post by a measly 0.5 points behind Josephians 314 points.

The lasses from Kandy on the other hand had a plain sail to the top in the Girls championship by scoring 342 points over Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo whose final score stood at 308.

Rumidi Samarakoon of Visakha Vidyalaya was adjudged the Girls Under 15 champion for her fine performance right throughout the championship securing 25 points for winning all events she took part. Akalanka Peiris of St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya too secured 25 points in the Boys Under 17 segment winning all his events was crowned the Under 17 Boys champion swimmer.

Royalist Revan Senaratne emerged Under 15 Boys champion collecting 23 points in winning all his appearances except 400m Free Style event in which he finished second..

K.M.N.N. Karunanayake from Killer Whale Aquatics clinched the Girls Under 17 championship facing a similar situation as Senaratne collected 23 points. She too won all her events and came second only in the 200m Back Stroke event.

In the Under 20 age category Nalandian Dilanka Shehan stood the above Boys swimmers and Shaleena Peiris of Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo also secured 23 points each to be the Champion Swimmers respectively. Both of them too won all their events except 1500m Back Stroke by the Nalandian and 50m Butterfly Stroke event by the Visakhian, both occupying the second spot. – Lakshman Ranasinghe; Pic courtesy thePapare.com