It was a day filled with mixed reactions as the waters of Sugathadasa was dominated by Peterite swimmer Akalanka Peiris, Nalandian Dilanka Shehan and Sri Lanka Army’s Ishani Senanayake.
The championship intensified with the relay events where three records were renewed and out of which Visakha Vidyalaya was accountable for two of them.
The Sri Lanka National Long Course Senior and Junior National Championship progressed to the third day with the long distance events being worked off towards the latter part of the day.
The Asian School Games silver medalist, Akalanka Peiris added two more golds to his tally by winning the 50m Butterfly and the 100m Backstroke. Peiris won both events without a contest and with that he makes it three gold medals so far having won the 50m Backstroke on day 2. He also has a bronze from the 100m Freestyle.
Nalanda’s Dilanka Shehan had his fair share of medals winning two last evening. The eighteen year old won the 200m Freestyle and the 800m Freestyle. With this, Shehan will have three gold medals to his name having won the 400m Freestyle on the first day.
Last year’s women’s champion Ishani Senanayake, now swimming for Sri Lanka Army got her second medial on offer winning the Women’s 200m Freestyle. She finished the race with a timing of 2:15.02 to take the top honours in the event.
While the championship hunt is an intense head to head battle in the senior category, Lyceum International School Wattala should be en-route for the Girls’ Junior Nationals title. Keeping their hopes alive is thirteen year old A. Kalyanasundaram who won two more gold medals on the third day.
Kalyanasundaram won the first event of the championship; the 400m Freestyle and later took silver in the Under 15 100m Freestyle. Getting her act together, two more gold medals came in on the third day as she won the Under 15 200m Freestyle and the Under 15 800m Freestyle.
Visakha establishes new relay records
The Visakha Vidyalaya swimmers established two new records for the championship in the relay events dominating the Girls Under 15 4X100 Freestyle relay and the Womens’ 4X50 Freestyle relay. The third for the day was by the Killer Whale Swimmers in the 4X50m Freestyle relay.
The 4X50 Girls Under 15 event was completed by Visakha Vidyalaya with a timing of 4:38.26 claiming the record while in second place, Lyceum International School Wattala finished the race with a timing of 4:38.69.
In the Women’s 4X50m Freestyle, Visakha clocked in at 1:58.53 to get to the record books. The four swimmers were Sandu Savindi, Ramudi Samarakoon, Shehanthi Gunawardena and Gihini Nawala.
The Killer Whale swimmers led by Matthew Abeysinghe dominated the 4X50m Freestyle in the Men’s category. The four swimmers finished the race with a record timing of 1:36.53 minutes to make the record books. In second place, Sri Lanka Navy only managed to finish the race 11 seconds later.
The four swimmers who made the record books were Matthew Abeysinghe, Kyle Abeysinghe, Dianaka Dharmapriya and Kavindra Nugawela.
Visakha Vidyalaya still maintains the lead in the Women’s division while Killer Whale has with them the lead in the Men’s competition.
Today (6th) will be the final day.
