Ladies dominate ‘regatta’ and win Boat Race by a whisker

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Category: rowing

Published on Saturday, 15 October 2011 09:22

Written by Lishan Wickramanayake

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Ladies College completed a comprehensive victory at the 8th Annual LC MC Regatta Friday evening at the Colombo Rowing Club. By doing so they wrestled back the Mary Museaus Higgins Trophy (Overall Regatta) from Museaus after a lapse of one year.

Ladies College’s dominance can be illustrated by the fact that they won 7 out of 9 events held, further it was a day were record after record shattered with almost all races improving on the previous best timings. Sarani Jayawardena led the Flower road lasses as Subashini Kularatne led the Rosmead Place girls.

The day started with double oarswoman of the year, Swarnamali Wijesinghe, winning the A sculls for Museaus by beating Amani Tissera in new record timing of 4.22. But that would be the only anomaly in the day as Ladies took control from the next race courtesy of captain Sarani, who bagged the B Sculls followed by Anishka Gomes and Anisha Gunasekara (LC) beating the much fancied MC pairing of Subashini Kularathne and Vinuri Wickramasekarain the B Pairs with a time of 4.22

Next was the Senior Pairs where Swarnamali W. and Janithri Marapana (MC) were outdone by the National Champion pair of Yanithra Hallock and Amani Tissera. This win put Ladies College ahead on the points table for the first time with a 14 to 6 lead.

The C Four which carries no points was won by the Ladies College combination of Tarea Karunarthne, Isabella Sansoni, Haiqa Mohamed, Anoushka Tissera and Shiloh Sumanthiran in a new record of 4.22

In the A Double Sculls Shiyanka De Zylva and Amaya Jayasuriya surged ahead of Vinuri Wickramasekara and Subashini Kularathne to pocket 7 points for Ladies. Museaus did manage to hit back by winning the B Doubles where Swarnamali and Janitri beat Haiqa Mohamed and Anoushka Tissera to give Museaus 5 valuable points and bring the overall pints to 21 to 11.

The Old girls race was won by MC with Dilhara Rupasinghe, Sachithra Jayathilake,Ishika de Silva, Chalani Ramanayake and Naduni Perera finishing ahead on compatriots Oshini Kulathunga, Terooka De Zylva, Terana Navarathne, Nerusha De Silva and Khyati Wikramanayake.

Only the two fours remained with Museaus needing to win both to retain the overall trophy for another year but it was not to be as Ladies College B Four easily won the penultimate race and gave the 8 points to put Ladies in an insurmountable position.

The Boat Race was the final event of the day, with LC leading the tally with 4 wins to MC’s 3 wins in the previous seven battles. The race was by far the most exciting of the evening with both crews knowing the importance of the race. Museaus College took the early lead through their superior stroke rate and held a half length lead for much of the race but Ladies were hanging on to their opponents waiting for the best opportunity to mount their charge. Ladies College had wait for the very end as Musueas weren’t going to surrender the ‘plum’ that easily. The crews were almost level with 10 strokes to go and it was an exciting neck and neck race with the lead changing with each stroke and both crews received the same ‘EASY’ and lawn umpires consulted each other and concurred that the outside boat (Ladies) won but a whisker and the sea of red and white erupted in celebration.

That race was by far the closest girls race I have witnessed in a few years and all credit goes to the two crews who certainly gave it all for those four minutes. And the race was a far cry from the one sided races that dominated rest of the regatta. In the end Ladies College completed their 5th victory in the LC MC and capped off an excellent season where did won their fair share of trophies including the three categories at last month’s Sri Lanka Nationals.

 

Yanithra Hallock and Amani Tissera were declared joint ‘Oarswomen of the Regatta’ by accumulating 20 points each.

Chief Guest for the evening was Dilani De Silva and the regatta was sponsored by Dialog Telekom who made it an entertaining evening with a giant LED screen and a live video feed from the water.

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