A total of 21 swimmers will mke up the Sri Lankan swimming contingent for the upcoming South Asian Games festival that will commence in India on the 5th of February.
Sri Lanka will field nine men and twelve women swimmers for the gala sports festival with hopes of bringing back gold for the country. The final selection trials were conducted from the 26th to the 31st of December 2015, out of which a 21 member squad was shortlisted. This was conducted through a criteria laid down by the selection committee in accordance to the National Olympic Committee.
Sri Lanka has been amongst the medals in swimming at the South Asian Games in the past. In the last edition of SAG in 2010, the Lankan swimmers were able to secure 3 Gold and 6 Silver medals, second only to India who won 16 Golds and 7 Silvers. This time around, Sri Lanka’s contingent is considerably richer in experience and will look to better their performance from the last SAG.
Experienced Matthew Abeysinghe will definitely be a medal winning prospect having already represented the country at an array of international swimming championships. Last year, Matthew became the first ever Sri Lankan to get a direct qualification to the FINA World Championships that was held in Kazan, Russia. Matthew currently holds his name underneath a few of the national records thus making him one of the best prospects for a medal this time around.
Cherantha De Silva who is one of the two swimmers from Sri Lanka to be entitled for a FINA training scholarship will be the other prospect for a medal as his exposure training under international expertise in Thailand will definitely be a value additive when he swims alongside the other South Asian swimmers. Kimiko Raheem is the other Lankan swimmer under the scholarship at Thanyapura Thailand and the duo will look to use their expertise in India in the coming weeks.
The other medal prospect will be former Royalist and current Navy swimmer Kanitha Munasinghe. Munasinghe who is also the holder of the 50 meter breast-stroke national record will be looking at improving his speed and agility during the next two weeks. He earlier bettered his own record at the SAG trials that were held last month.
Julian Bolling, Manoj Abeysinghe, Indika Perera and Sugath Uyanhewa will be the officials for SAG while the team will be managed by Migara Gunathilake.
