Sri Lanka’s swimmers felicitated for fine performances

by Leslie FERNANDO

FELICITATION: Sri Lanka medal winners in swimming who brought honour and glory to the country through their perseverance, dedication and ability at the 11th South Asian Games held in Dhaka, Bangladesh will be greatly rewarded with all assistance and support to bring more success for the country, said Gamini Lokuge, Minister of Sports and Public Recreation at the simple felicitation ceremony held at the Sports Ministry Auditorium on Friday evening.

Our swimmers won medals due to systematic training. The coaches were also responsible for swimmers’ performance and they should be commended.

The Government assistance will be provided uninterrupted. Necessary funds will be available. Furthermore Sports Ministry will make arrangements to send to medal winning swimmers aboard for special training programme under qualified international swimming coaches. We are also considering to get down a top swimming coach from abroad. The coaches will also stand a great chance to obtain more knowledge attending FINA swimming coaching programmes.

It’s a great achievement for our swimmers participating in 19 events and grabbing 13 medals, compared to 2006 Colombo Games.

They should continue to further strengthen their swimming skills to perform even better at future international meets.

Maithripala Sirisena, Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Services who is the President of the Interim Committee of Sri Lanka Aquatic Sports Union (SLASU) was a very happy person. Mr. Sirisena paid glowing tributes to the young swimmers for their fine achievement of winning medals at international level. The swimmers’ performance will definitely will encourage the sportsmen and sportswomen of the country.

“I feel happy because the swimmers were able to do something for the country. I believe it’s possible for our swimmers to bring more honour and glory in swimming for the country in the future”, the swimming boss said.

Minister Sirisena thanked President Mahinda Rajapaksa for providing 12 swimming pools in different districts from the President’s Sports Development Programme. Already ten more swimming pools are being constructed through the effort of the President. So swimmers from the outstations will be able to show their talent in the pool and will come in to limelight with other elite swimmers from Colombo.

Already Provincial Councils have been advised to offer all assistance to the swimmers to develop their skills. Mineka Karunaratne was the ‘star’ swimmer, winning two gold medals in the 50 and 100 metres breast stroke and a silver in the 4x100 metres women’s medley relay.

Heshan Unamboowe who won a gold in the 100 metres back stroke establishing new South Asian Games Record was the other swimmer to perform well. He also won two silver medals and two bronze medals.

The other swimmers to win medals were Miniruwani Samarakoon - two silver and one bronze, Gihara Amerasinghe - a silver and a bronze medal, Conrad Francis - a silver and a bronze, Diluk Thibbotumunawa - a bronze, C.B. Wickremasinghe - a bronze, Madhavee Weerathunga - a silver and a bronze.