Teams from Royal College and Museaus College powered their boats like turbo charged engines to move the 300 m distance in the shortest possible time in two rounds.
The Ranfer Sprints Regatta started at 2.30 p.m at CRC. With 5 teams registered in the men’s category, there were two heats between Royal College (RC) & University of Moratuwa (UOM) and S. Thomas College (STC) & University of Colombo (UOC). Mohammed Mubarak from UOM and Poorna Thanushan & Lahiru Karunaratne the pair from UOC displayed their best sprinting techniques against their competitors. But this is a team, winning one boat is not enough, it is the combined win of the fours, pairs and sculls that ensures the final win for the team. RC and STC managed to beat the university boats at most races and entered the finals to race against the Colombo Rowing club (CRC) team.
The second event on the agenda was the ladies sprints. Boats that are best at sprinting from Ladies College (LC), Museaus College (MC) and Bishops College (BC) entered the three lanes in the Beira lake. The competition was tough between MC and LC, while the BC team was still struggling to shift from the normal lengthy strokes with power to the ‘take a home’ all the way strategy. Janethri Marapana the MC sculler, Dilki Wijeyesekera & Senuri De Silva the pair from MC led the LC pair and Scull by a three seconds difference. But the LC four consisting of Ishara Abbey, Chanika Gunatileke, Nihara Waravita, Dihanie Ameresinghe and Tehani Walpola managed to lead the MC four by half a boat length difference, in round one. In the second round MC led LC in the scull and pair while losing the four by a one second. But on the total score MC won the gold over LC who settled for silver at the end of second round.
Similar to the Ladies event, the men’s category also had a close competition between CRC and RC. In the first round Saliya Gunasekara from STC reached the end a second before Shehan Muthugala from CRC, who managed to win the scull in round two. Ashan Pitiarachchi and Srikanth Kotelawala of CRC went for the gold in both the rounds. But RC team with Lasaru Kudaligama, Kaveen Rajapakse,
Praveen Weerakkody, Thimesha Amarasena and Avishka Jayaweera managed to win the four in both round one and two which gave them the win of the day by three points ahead of CRC.
The last event of the day was the Masters four category which was the four race between two CRC teams of seasoned oarsmen that was a treat for the spectators at the pier. The masters four with Varuna, Maheel, Baasim and Prasantha won the race against the CRC 1 with Kusal, Hussain, Shane and Nalin.
The Sprints of the boats was spectacular view for the team mates, friends and family cheering from the pier. And a day for celebration for RC and MC on their achievement on sprinting the boats.
