Mahamaya and St. Joseph’s take honours at the All Island Aquatic Championship

The 44th edition of the All Island Age Group Aquatic Championship ended yesterday, with Mahamaya and St. Joseph’s defending their titles once again.

As the meet drew to a close Mahamaya Girls School Kandy won the championship yet again with a total of 518 points whilst Visakha Vidyalaya failed to turn the tables on them coming in a close second with 507.5 points. Although Mahamaya College was first in the senior girls division with 432 points, they were placed 5th in the junior division with Lyceum Wattala topping that division with 231 points. Notwithstanding the junior division position, the points gained in the senior division was sufficient for Mahamaya to take home the title of champions once again.

As expected St. Joseph’s College was placed first in the boy’s category, after being on top of the leader board for the past 3 days. They ended the meet this year with 560 points and Royal College trailed behind them with 381 points. St. Joseph’s dominated both the junior and senior boy’s divisions, with 153 and 407 points respectively.

Lyceum Wattala was first in the combined schools category, with 541 points with Lyceum Nugegoda a distant second with 266.5 points. Lyceum Wattala was placed first in the junior girl’s division with 231 points and 4th in the senior boy’s division with 166 points.

The final day of the tournament was full of record breaking events with a total of 13 new records being made. Majority of these new records were in the relay events; Lyceum Wattala broke the record for the U17 400 LC Meter Freestyle Relay replacing the old record of 3:55.15 with their timing of 3:51.47, Visakha Vidyalaya established a new record for the U15 400 LC Meter Freestyle relay with their timing of 4:33.66 replacing the old record of 4:35.15, St. Joseph’s broke 2 records for the U19 and U15 400 LC Meter Freestyle events with their timings of 4:21.19 and 3:25.85 replacing 4:22.53 and 5:08.39 respectively.

At the conclusion of the tournament the best male swimmer award was given to Akalanka Peiris from St. Peter’s College for his extraordinary performance over the 4 days. The best female swimmer award was awarded to Vinoli Kaluarachchi of Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya for her exceptional performance throughout the tournament.

The U19 champion this year was Dilanka Shehan from Nalanda College with 45 points and 3 records, while the girls champion was jointly won by Gihini Nawela from Visakha Vidyalaya, S A K U Kulathunga from Girls High School Kandy and Thomali Senivirathna from Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya all with 30 points.

The U17 boys champion was Akalanka Peiris from St. Peter’s College with 45 points and 3 new records under his name while Monali Weerakody from Gateway College Colombo was the girl’s champion with 40 points and 2 records. In the U15 division Shevindha De Silva from St. Joseph’s and Ramudi Samrakoon from Visakha were awarded the boys and girls champion for the age group with 40 points 2 records and 45 points 3 records respectively.

The 44th Aquatic Championship also showcased an inter-school diving competition which was won by Royal College with 193 points in the boy’s category and Bishop’s College in the girl’s category with 150 points. The U19 boys champion was Dulanjan Fernando from Royal College with 30 points and the girl’s champion was Vivanka Nananyakara with 27 points. A majority of the rest of the age groups were also dominated by Royal and Bishop’s College.

With the conclusion of the 44th edition of the championship the leaderboard for the swimming and diving events were as follows;

Swimming

Diving