The Sri Lankan aquatic team will be stepping into both the swimming and diving pools in Birmingham with the aim of renewing their personal bests and doing their best for Sri Lanka in the pool. Generally speaking, in the South Asian region Sri Lanka has dominated swimming especially in the South Asian Games with Sri Lankan swimmers regularly taking numerous medals in the pool, winning 7 gold medals in 2019 and 12 in 2016. Even in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Sri Lanka was represented in aquatics by 2 swimmers, namely Matthew Abeysinghe and Aniqah Gaffor. For the 2022 Commonwealth Games the Sri Lankan Aquatics will be represented by 2 swimmers and one diver.
This is in stark contrast to 2018, where Sri Lanka took 6 swimmers with them to the Gold Coast including a relay team which made history by becoming the first relay team to make the finals of an international event. The one surviving member of this quartet, Akalanka Peiris will be going to the Commonwealth Games for the second consecutive year and he will be hoping to renew his own national records in the pool in Birmingham. Akalanka Peiris is a multiple National Record holder in the backstroke and it is in this stroke that Akalanka will be looking to bring the biggest contribution to Sri Lanka, in the 50m event. Additionally, he will also be participating in the 50m butterfly event which will act as a warm up to his main event.
Akalanka’s history of representing Sri Lanka stretches back to the past decade with multiple national championships at the school level and international level, winning 2 golds and a silver at the Asian Age Group Championships in 2017 and seven medals (one gold, three silvers and three bronzes) at the 2019 South Asian Games. He has also represented Sri Lanka at the Youth Olympic Games placing 9th the 50m backstroke at the world level as well as the 2018 Asian Games where he became the first Sri Lankan to write a government examination while on foreign soil. He has also flown the national flag with pride at two World Championships in 2019 and 2021 placing in the top 50 in the world in the latter. In an interview with MoraSpirit, Akalanka said that he would be hoping to do his best at the upcoming games and we at MoraSpirit wish him the best of luck in his endeavours.
The other swimmer for Sri Lanka is school sensation Ganga Seneviratne, a precocious talent from Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo, who will also be representing Sri Lanka in 2 events namely the Women’s 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke. She recently won 4 gold medals at the recently concluded National trials winning golds in the Women’s 100m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke. Additionally, she also was part of the Sri Lankan team that went to the 2021 World Shortcourse Championships placing 36th in the Women’s 50m backstroke.
Ganga has also represented Sri Lanka at the World Junior Swimming Championships as well as the South Asian Games in 2019 where she won bronze in the 200m backstroke and was part of 3 silver medal winning relay teams.
The only diver who will be representing Sri Lanka at the Games is Dulanjan Fernando who will be taking part in the 1m springboard and 3m springboard disciplines. Dulanjan has a history of significant performances in Australia, where he is based and where he currently studies at, winning bronze at the Victoria Open State Championships in the 10m platform event. Before that he had won gold in the 1m and 3m springboard events at the 19-24 Age Category in the Victorian Age Championships which earned him qualifications for the Australian Age Group Championships where he once again impressed placing fourth in the 3m and second in the 1m events.
Dulanjan has past experience of representing Sri Lanka at the national level being adjudged the Champion Diver at the 2017 Singapore Invitational National Diving Championships winning 3 silver medals in the 1m springboard, 3m springboard and 3m platform events. He has also represented the nation as a schoolboy at the Asian Swimming Championships in 2016 in the 3m springboard event. Making his debut at the Commonwealth Games after being omitted at the last moment in 2018, Dulanjan will be hoping for redemption in Birmingham as he embarks on his quest to dive for glory.
Despite having a reduced squad Sri Lanka will still be represented in Birmingham by a prodigiously talented set of individuals who will be vying to show off their skills in the pool. We at MoraSpirit, wish them the best of luck for the games in Birmingham and hope they will succeed in their goals at both the games and beyond!
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