Two scullers from Rowing nationals for Olympics in Beijing

by Lislie Fernando

ROWING: Interesting and competitive rowing will be the order of the day when oarsmen and oarswomen together with boys and girls rowers from thirteen affiliated clubs will vie for major honours at the 23rd Rowing National Championships to be held from tomorrow Monday 17th September to 22 on the Beira Waters.

This year a total of 224 rowers from 13 affiliated clubs and schools -Colombo Rowing Club, Old Joes Sports Club, Ananda College, Royal, Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Navy, St. Joseph's College, S. Thomas' College, University of Colombo, Asian International School, Bishop's College, Ladies College, Musaeus College will row in 164 races to be worked over a period of six days with the finals being held on Saturday, September 22. The championships commence from 1.00 p.m. each day.

Mr. Deva Henry - President of ARASL said that three lane rowing in certain categories will also be held.

Asian International School will be participating for the first time.

The premier regatta is conducted by the Amateur Rowing Association of Sri Lanka (ARASL) and sponsored by Mobitel for the second time.

Deva Henry, the President of ARASL at a press conference held at the Colombo Rowing Club pavilion on Thursday evening, thanked the sponsors Mobitel for supporting this event for the second time. The National Rowing Championships was not held last year due to South Asian Games held in Colombo. The relationship with ARASL and Mobitel will flourish and hoped Mobitel will also continue to sponsor rowing and get involved in future regattas.

The rowing chief added that the sport has gained popularity in the recent past with good performances at the 10th South Asian Games held in Colombo 2006, which is considered to be the premier sporting extravaganza in the region. The ARASL will identify the rowers' performances and select two scullers to be trained in Bejing, China in preparation for the Olympic Games.

The events and categories are: single sculls, double sculls, pairs, fours and coxed fours for under-16, under-19,under 23, over-23, senior and open. For open category coxless fours is included.

The overall winners of the respective II categories will be decided by the team winning the most number of gold, silver and bronze medals. Trophies will be presented to the Best Schoolboy Sculler and Best Schoolgirl sculler.

Further in keeping up with international standards, competitors' boats will be weighed which would ensure that boats of same weight would compete amongst each other.

Suren J. Amarasekera, Chief Executive Officer of Mobitel said "We are proud to be sponsoring an event of this magnitude with over 100 races in a sport that is well-known for its relentless focus on technique, endurance and athleticism that we believe results in a degree of precision second to none.

At Mobitel, we are similarly obsessed with precision in our own everyday activities, especially as it pertains to fine tuning our own offerings of service quality and customer satisfaction to be more precise as they are the essential tools we use to improve our own customer focus an era we continue to strive to perfect everyday."

Yohan Corera, Assistant Secretary ARASL, Chris Parakrama, Director Competition, Iqbal Gaffoor, Treasurer and Nihal Silva Co-ordinator were associated at the press conference.

Gamini Lokuge, the Minister of Sports will be the chief guest on the final day of rowing.