Trinity College, Kandy created a new record when it won the National Swimming Championship conducted by the Sri Lanka Aquatic Sports Union (SLASU) for the third time worked off at the Ananda College swimming pool in Colombo recently.
The new record is that Trinity College is the first school to win the National Swimming Championship for the third time. They won this in 2007, 2008 and 2011. In winning this title they had to compete with schools, clubs and teams from the forces and some of the former top swimmers from Trinity too swam for the other teams. Trinity’s fine performance was spearheaded by Sri Lanka Captain Heshan Unamboowe when he won five events and also towered two meet records and one of them had the best timing for that event for the SAF games.
Heshan Unamboowe of Trinity College, a swimmer with real champion qualities. Picture by Upananda Jayasundera
Incidentally Heshan Unamboowe is presently undergoing training in Melbourne, Australia and had returned to his school during the off training season. He hopes to return to Australia shortly.
His presence in the Trinity College swimming really propped up the team’s performance.
Another achievement of Trinity College which is unparallel is that they won the 4 x 200 metres free style relay for the sixth successive year. The relay team members were skipper Lashan Senaratne, Migara Hulangamuwa, Imuditha Athurupana and Heshan who did the last lap.
Taveesh Edissuriya too excelled by winning a gold in the 200 metre breast stroke. Overall Shehan de Silva performed well along with Skipper Lashan Senaratne, and Vice Captain Navin Diyakelinawa.
In this championship Trinity College totalling 182 points and regaining the championship after a lapse of two years. In second place was Royal College with 172 points. Finishing third was St. Joseph’s College with 168 which indicates a closely fought battle. Trinity’s swimming this year has been not what it had been in the past when they swept the board winning championship after championship. But the return of Heshan Unamboowe made all the difference but the efforts of other swimmers should not be undermined and in the final reckoning it is the team effort which brings championship title in a sport where every point collected matters.
The team is coached by U. H. Pemlath with Welter Brown as master in Charge.
The team receives all the guidance and encouragement from its Principal Brigadier Udaya Ariyaratne.
As appeared on the Dailynews (25th of October 2011), written by S M Jiffrey Abdeen.
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