Ananda Win Battle of the A's

• 
• 

Details

Category: rowing

Published on Monday, 17 October 2011 23:23

Written by Lishan Wickramanayake

Hits: 1370

 

Ananda College won the third annual Battle of the A’s Regatta against the Asian International School at the Colombo Rowing Club. The victors collected 24 points against their opponents 16 points.

Ananda College under the leadership Manilka Gunarathne had their best season on record after achieving a number of wins including the plum of winning the overall under 19 category at the 27th Sri Lanka Rowing Nationals. AIS were captained by the very determined Dinuk Fernando, who probably is the best product out of the AIS rowing program since its founding in 2007.

Ananda College began the day by bagging the two sculls where 2010 captain Suwin Karunaratne got the better of AIS Dinuk Fernando(AIS) in the A Sculls and in the B Sculls Lasitha Madhushan won easily against Vishan Gunathilake.

Ananda also won the B Pairs easily when Suneth Abeyrathne and Sriwantha Kothalawela (AC) beat Dulitha Hennayake and Naveen Jayasinghe.

The tide turned with the A Pairs when the AIS Pair of Dinuk Fernando and Vishan Gunathilake beat the much fancied Ananda pair of Ashan Pitiyaratchi and Nilusha De Alwis creating an upset. It was the first time that AIS won the senior pair in the three attempts.

After the interval, the Junior Fours which turned out to be the most intense and interesting race of the evening ended with the AIS crew getting the better of the Anandians by half a canvas. It was quite a feat considering the Ananda four won the silver at nationals and the AIS four didn’t even qualify to the 4 lane final held last month.

At the end of 5 races, AIS surprising lead the points table with 16 points to 12 and Ananda needed to win the A four to clinch the Overall trophy.

The Ananda A Four (Ashan Pitiyaratchi, Manilka Guneratne, Nilusha De Alwis, Tharkana Kulathunga, and Ravin Karunaratne) did not disappoint their fans as they completed an emphatic win to clinch their third straight A four and annexed the W P Perera overall trophy.

In the end Ananda College ended their season on a high and 2011 will be remembered for the years to come. The AIS crew should be commended for their performance this evening to push Ananda crew to the final A four race.

The Ananda College Rowing crew also bid farewell to long time coaches Ahamed Aslam and Rifath Mohamed who have moulded them since their inception in 2002. Aslam and Mohamed will be moving to a new assignment from next season.

 

 

• < Prev
• Next >