Blues in the pool

Another Battle of the Blues in the offing! Royal College, Colombo and S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia have made arrangements to inaugurate a Royal Thomian Swimming Championships meet on May 26 and 27, 2009 at the S. Thomas' Pool at Mount Lavinia. According to the Joint Organizing Committee comprising old boys of both schools this event will be an annual feature in the Royal Thomian sports calendar from this year onwards. This year S. Thomas' College will host the event and the Royalist will do the honours next year and alternatively thereafter. With the addition of this event to the calendar of sports between Royal and S. Thomas', a gap which existed for a very long time has been filled.

According to the Joint Organizing Committee this meet is organized as a friendly duel between the two oldest arch rivals in the schools sporting history in Sri Lanka.

Further this meet will be a prelude to the upcoming Sri Lanka Schools Swimming Championships meet. Events in this meet are arranged as per Public Schools events schedule in order to give an opportunity for swimmers of both schools to prepare themselves for the Public Schools meet. All events in the meet expected to be swum as timed finals where three swimmers from each school will take part. However this is slightly different for junior age groups.

Organizers have granted an opportunity for more than three junior swimmers who belong to under 9 and 11 age groups to participate in the meet in order to motivate the boys. There will be heats and finals for junior age groups to cater to this important aspect of swimming.

In addition each school is expected to enter two teams for all relay events included in the schedule of events. Overall champions of the meet will be awarded Creon Corea Memorial Challenge Trophy named after the late swimmer who represented Royal College in the early 1980s.

Another unique feature of this meet will be the relay events included for old boys of the two schools. Old boy swimmers of age groups 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s will take part in these events and the champions will be awarded the OTSC Challenge Trophy.

This event will no doubt entertain spectators more than the other events of the present boys.

Upali Gunasekara, Principal, Royal College and Mr. Harshana Perera, Acting Warden, S. Thomas' College were instrumental in making this event a reality. Teachers In Charge of Swimming at both Royal and S. Thomas together with Swimming Captains and Coaching Teams of respective schools spent lot of efforts in preparing the boys for this historic occasion.

Old boys of the two schools who formed the Joint Organizing Committee amid have made all arrangements to make this event a spectacular and a memorable event for both Royalists and Thomians.