Thomians and Bishopians excel at Novices Swimming C’ship

S.Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia and Bishop’s College Colombo dominated the 14th Annual All Island Sri Lanka Schools Age Group Novices Aquatic Championships as they emerged overall champions in both Swimming and Diving events concluded recently at the Sugathadasa Swimming pool complex.

Thomian swimming team including 58 swimmers led by head coach Dr Ghefari Dulapandan who was the former National swimming team skipper and World championshiop swimmer showed a strong comeback on the last day of the competition and won the boys’ overall swimming championship earning 103 total points.

St.Peter’s College Bambalapitiya finished as runner-up beating 52 other boys’ schools that participated with a total of 88 points. Thomians also managed to win the overall Novices boys diving championship with 67 total points with a team of 7 divers, under the guidance of Coach Dulan Anuruddha.

Meanwhile the Bishopians recorded their second win by becoming Novices Girls diving champions with 30 points after winning the girls swimming championship last weekend accumulating an aggregate of 79 points earlier in this same meet.

A pretty convincing win by the Bishopians. Selina Silva and Dinaya Rathnayake accounted for 24 and 21 points respectively in the Under-18 and Under-20 age categories. After the Boyd Place School, Sangamiththa Girls School, Galle finished with 60 points at second while St. Peter’s College, Negombo settled in at third with 51 points in the two-day girls’ affair at the swimming event Visakha Vidyalaya, the school of national swimmer Ganga Seneviratne, managed to muster only a seventh-place finish, gathering 37 points.