Head of Beira, the opening regatta to begin the season at Colombo Rowing Club got combined with the postponed closing regatta from last year to create a new combination of junior and senior oarsmen and women enthusiastically rowing a mile.
The day began with races for the opening regatta on the 27th February at CRC, which had more juniors and the closing regatta was scheduled to the evening session that focused on the seniors.
The opening regatta had the fours, scull and double scull events both in men’s and women’s category. In the men’s event, two teams each, from Royal College (RC), S. Thomas’s College 
(STC), Asian International College (AIS), University of Moratuwa (UOM) and a team of University of Colombo competed in the coxed four. RC 1 team – Thimesha Amarasene, Praveen Weerakody, Kavinda Mathew, Hashen Hettigoda and Avishka Jayaweera had a minute difference from STC team that came-in second. Musaeus College (MC) grabbed gold in the women’s four, Ranuli Wickramasekera, Binali De Alwis, Maedhini De Alwis, Senuri De Silva and Mayanthi Weeakoon with a timing comparable with that of the mens’ four.
The men’s double scull race was won by Kavinda Mathew and Hashen Weerakody from RC, they were closely followed by Saliya Gunasekara and Deshitha Hennayake from STC, the last four seconds decided the winner of this race.
Photo Album – Colombo Rowing Club Closing Regatta
RC had its winning streak continuing in the men’s scull with Heshan Weerakody also adding this to his list of golds at the opening regatta. In the women’s scull event Niseni Hewamallika from MC finished the race several boat lengths ahead of the sculler from Ladies College.
Double scullers of national grade Samaakhya Gajanayake and Janethri Marapana representing CRC raced to beat their own records in the ladies double scull event. These events summed the end of the opening regatta by noon.
The closing regatta started with the heats for the Cyraine Cup, the women’s pair. In the race between the Ladies College (LC) team with Shannon Perera and Dihanie Amerasinghe and 
University of Colombo, LC had a 30 second lead that took them to the semi-finals against Museaus College. But LC failed to beat the MC team, which moved Ranuli Wickramasekera and Ashvini Jayathilaka from MC to the finals against the second LC team, Nihara Warawita and Jeshani Srikumar. Though this LC team entered the finals as the UOM team was disqualified, this luck did not follow them at the finals against MC. Musaeites won the Cyraine Cup by more than two boat lengths.
The Men’s scull race also known as the Herman Sirumanne had the semi-finals between Hashen Hettigoda from RC and Bilal Hassen from CRC. By taking it home faster than Bilal, Hashen raced Mohammed Mubarak at the finals andyet again won the race with a boat length difference. In the Presidents’ trophy female scull race, Ishara Abbey from LC and Samaakhya Gajanayake representing CRC raced the mile and Ishara finished the race with nearly a ten second gap.
CRC Vice-Captain Shehan Muthugala mentioned with surprise that, “The Presidents’ Trophy between Ishara and Samakya had quite shocking results. It was expected for Samakya to win the race as she has better practice and endurance required for the mile race, but Ishara surprised everyone nearing the finish line first”.
It is these surprises that makes the regattas interesting as the talent just shows up when it is least expected.
