University of Moratuwa (UOM) is not just the title winner for the third consecutive year, but they have maintained the trend set by their predecessors. The men’s team achieved their whitewash target, while the women’s too had their hat-trick overall win (24-18) against the tough game by the University of Colombo (UOC) team.
The day began smoothly with easy wins on the scull events for Mubarak and Thennakoon of UOM. The women’s team from UOM also had a good race down the course with Karunarathna and Uchinda on the B-pair and Piyamal and Chandrarathna on A-pair. The women’s A-pair is promising pair that reached the pier with a good 14 second lead.
With continuous wins for UOM, the day was getting slightly boring, to change this mood set at CRC, Wijesuriya, women’s B-sculler from UOC decided to turn the scores on the board and wiping the whitewash target for the UOM women’s team.
But the most exiting race for the day was the men’s B four, Amaranga, Katugampala, Sarathchandra, Senarathne and Lihinikaduwa from UOM almost gave a heart attack to their supporters by almost losing the race. For everyone who was with the expectation of a hat-trick whitewash, the team from UOC, Thanushan, Wickramasinghe, Leo, Didulana and Sampath gave a challenging race. The boats were coming down the course quite close to each other with a slight lead by UOC, but adrenaline pump in the UOM men gave them a 2 second lead in the last 10 meters.
Following the excitement, women’s B four of Rodrigo, Uchinda, Girihagama, Gunasekara, and Weerasinghe from UOM had a clean win with a gap of three boat lengths. But the women’s A four didn’t have the same luck in the waters, UOC four with Werapitiya, Achini, Jayasundara, Wijesuriya and Sampath rowed hard and crossed the end 3 seconds prior to their competitors.
There is popular saying among the rowers, “you’ve not won the regatta until you complete the boat race”, so audience at the pier waited to witness the epic win. It should be especially mentioned the UOC A four – Liyanage, Wettasinghe, Iqbal and Jayamaha raced quite close to the A team from UOM – Charles Leo, Ihalage, Thennakoon, Mubarak and Sameera. In end UOM finished the race in style with a boat length ahead.
