The Killer Whales completed their 5th successive year as the Senior National Men’s Champions, at the Junior and Senior National Aquatic Championship 2019, concluded on the 3rd November at the Sugathadasa Stadium. The Senior Women’s Championship was won by Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo.
The Junior and Senior National Aquatic Championship commenced on the 31st of October at the Sugathadasa Waters, and the 2019 titles were competed for over 4 days. While Killer Whale and Visakha claimed convincing victories in the Senior categories, the girls and boys of the Lyceum clan dominated the junior category.
Killer Whale Aquatics won their 5th straight National title with a whopping 356 points to their name. Army Aquatic Sports Committee finished as Runners-up with 136 points while Ananda College won third place with 119 points.
Visakha Vidyalaya held a commanding lead over Lyceum International School Wattala to win the Senior Women’s title with points for the 1st and 2nd reading 243 and 190 respectively. The once mighty Sirimavo clan came in third with 109 points.
Lyceum International School Wattala won the Junior Nationals Girls’ title with 163 points. Sirimavo Bandaranaike grabbed second place with 133 points in total while St. Bridget’s Convent came in third with 92 points.
While the Wattala branch claimed the Girls’ title, the Junior Boys title was won by Lyceum International School Nugegoda with 127 points in total. St. Peter’s College came in second with a close 118 points to grab Silver as Ananda College took home Bronze.
15 new records were established at the meet in both junior and senior formats. The biggest outcome in terms of records came from National cap Akalanka Peiris, as he broke the Men’s 50m Backstroke National record with a swim of 26.27sec. Peiris was the holder of the previous standing record which he established at the Youth Olympic Games in 2018 at 26.33sec.
>>Click here for Team Championship Results<<
Fourteen-year-old Minagi Rupasinghe of St. Bridget’s Convent established three records to her name. She claimed the 100m and 200m Backstroke events with record times of 1:11.23min and 2:35.88min. She also won Gold in the 400m Individual Medley clocking 5:52.69min which was also a renewal of the meet record.
Junior Girls’ Freestyle queen, Hiruki De Silva of Gateway College Dehiwala also staked her claim to three records this year. She won the 100m Freestyle event with a time of 1:03.06min, shattering the previous record of 1:03.63min.
The 200m Freestyle record stood at 2:20.21min, until Hiruki renewed it with a brilliant final time of 2:17.86min. She also won the 800m Freestyle event with a mind-blowing record time of 10:21.70min while the previous record was at 10:45.49min.
Thinaya Jayarathne of Lyceum International School Panadura won the Girls’ Under 15 200m Breaststroke with a record time of 2:56.40min.
Nesha Rathnyake of Stafford International School walked away with 2 records to her name, the under 15 50m Butterfly and 50m Freestyle. She finished the Fly in 30.48sec while her Freestyle timing of 28.78sec was enough to renew the standing record.
>>Click here for all results from the meet<<
Hiruki De Silva was named the Junior Girls’ Champion with 20 points while Chris Pavithra of St. Peter’s College won the Junior Boys title with 25 points. Ramudi Samarakoon of Visakha Vidyalaya and Dilanka Shehan of Nalanda College won the Senior Individual awards with 25 and 21 points respectively.
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