Sri Lanka Rowing

40th Sri Lanka Rowing National Championships

Sri Lanka Celebrates Four Decades of Rowing Excellence with the 40th Rowing National Championships

The Amateur Rowing Association of Sri Lanka (ARASL) is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated 40th Sri Lanka Rowing National Championships, set to take place from July 23rd to 26th, 2025, at the iconic Diyawanna Rowing Centre in Battaramulla. This milestone event will feature over 200 exhilarating races across four days, welcoming over 600 entries and showcasing the talent of over 300 athletes, bringing together the nation's most talented oarsmen and oarswomen.

The National Championships stand as the pinnacle of domestic rowing in Sri Lanka, showcasing the diverse and robust talent pool across various categories. While rowing was historically introduced as an elite sport, it has evolved significantly over the years. Today, it boasts widespread participation from schools, clubs, universities, and the armed forces, making it a truly inclusive sport that reflects the dedication, skill, and sportsmanship of a broad spectrum of Sri Lankan athletes.

This championship holds immense significance as the primary stepping stone for aspiring rowers to represent Sri Lanka on the international stage. Many national team members who have brought glory to the country began their journey at this very regatta, making it a crucial platform for identifying and nurturing future champions.

The history of the Sri Lanka Rowing National Championships is deeply interwoven with the evolution of the sport in the country. Over its four-decade legacy, the championship has graced several key venues that have shaped Sri Lankan rowing. For 24 years, the prestigious Colombo Rowing Club served as its traditional home, witnessing countless historic races and the rise of legendary rowers over a 1000m course. A pivotal moment in the regatta's history was the shift to the scenic Bolgoda Lake Rowing Club for 3 years, a move specifically undertaken to allow for the extension of race distances from 1000m to the international standard of 2000m, thus aligning Sri Lankan rowing with global competition requirements. In more recent times, the
state-of-the-art Diyawanna Rowing Centre has proudly hosted the Championships for 13 years, providing a world-class facility for the nation's premier rowing competition.

The success of the 40th Sri Lanka Rowing National Championships is made possible by the invaluable support of our esteemed partners. We extend our sincere gratitude to Fondre as our Primary Sponsor, and CAL as our Associate Sponsor. Our Food and Beverage partner Prima Kottu Mee, is ensuring athletes and spectators are well-catered for. Furthermore, we acknowledge the crucial contributions of our Digital Sponsors, Ceynergy and Califolink, who enhance the reach and experience of the event. We are also deeply grateful to Asiri Hospitals, our dedicated Medical Sponsor, ensuring the well-being of all participants throughout the championships.

As we mark this significant 40th anniversary, the ARASL invites all rowing enthusiasts, sports fans, and media to witness the passion, power, and precision that define Sri Lankan rowing. Join us in celebrating this enduring tradition and cheering on the athletes who embody the spirit of the sport.

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Catch the excitement on its final day!

Sri Lanka Indoor Rowing Nationals 2025 Catch the SL indoor rowing races live on youtube!

https://www.twitch.tv/SL_Rowing_Event?sr=a

Follow the action LIVE!

SL_Rowing_Event - Twitch SL Indoor Rowing Nationals 2025

1st phase of Costal Rowing program with Mr. Chris Perry at Sri Lanka Olympic house.

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝘆𝗮 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱

Sri Lanka oarsmen brought honour to the country by winning the first gold medal in an Asian Circuit held in Thailand yesterday.

The first gold medal was won in the morning by Shaylon Gunaratna in the men’s single scull event. This is considered a great achievement in the Asian circuit at the AJCRC in Thailand against heavyweights in rowing.

Later in the afternoon Sri Lanka won a bronze medal in the double scull event. The rowers were Shaylon Gunaratne and Rovinya Wijesekera in the double scull event.

They both representing National Junior Rowing Squad of Sri Lanka. Also Our Heartiest Congrautalions to Mr. Pedro Zans (Technical Director of Sri Lanka Rowing) who has been taking up them into this excellent level.

Rovinya & Sahylon...
We are very happy & Proud of both of you...

37th Intermediate and Junior National Rowing Championships - 2022

අතරමැදි හා කනිශ්ඨ ජාතික ඔරු පැදිමේ ශූරතාවලිය - 2022

දියවන්නාවේ හපන්කම් - 37th Junior & Intermediate National Rowing Championships 2022 Follow us on Social Media- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Tamimeadia- WhatsApp - +94773557667

Six rowers to represent Sri Lanka at BIMSTEC 2021

The Amateur Rowing Association of Sri Lanka (ARASL) will send a young and aspiring team of six oarsmen and oarswomen to represent the country at the upcoming Youth Water Sports Championship 2021, conducted by the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Coorperation or BIMSTEC to be held in Bhopal, India. The event will be held at the Upper Lake Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh in India from Novermber 22 to 27.

The team includes three boys and three girls, who have reached the highest level in rowing at domestic level and are good enough to don the national cap easily. The three boys in action for Sri Lanka are Disas Buwanesh Sooriyaratchi of Ananda College, Viruna Cooray of Royal College and Ashika Hansidhu Rathnaweera of S. Thomas’ College while the lasses are Gabrielle Analiese Estrelita Senanayake and Tanita Yu Mei Goonetilleke both from Ladies’ College and Anithra Minoli Fernando of Colombo International School .

“These are youngsters who have been brilliant for their school teams at junior and national levels. Of course unlike in the past we have had a bad period due to the current pandemic situation, yet we have managed to keep our athletes busy and fit through other sources and programmes. This is an event that will be most beneficial for these young athletes to gain exposure with international events on the cards for the coming year,” stated Sithira Wickramasekera, the vice president of ARASL.

Former Royal College oarsman turned rowing coach, Lahiru Herath will be leading the team as coach on tour. The upcoming event will be the first assignment for Pedro Sanz Lopez, a reputed and experienced coach from Spain with an immense wealth of international experience. Lopez will be working very closely with the six athletes assisted by his understudies Herath and Rifath Mohamed, who have very good knowledge about the local athletes and their capabilities.

“I believe that these youngsters are highly skilled for their age. We surely can up their current timings and I have given them individual tasks on how to achieve that. They are optimistic, and have shown great improvement,” coach Lopez stated about the team.

The organisers of the event have specifically set the age rule as athletes of 18-years-old while explaining the regulations which state that athletes who reaches the age of 18 and have competed at a Junior Rowing event until December 31, 2020 will be eligible to take part in the event. ARASL has picked the six athletes based on this criteria.

The Sri Lankan athletes will compete under the categories of Junior Men’s Single Sculls (JM1x), Junior Men’s Double Sculls (JM2x), Junior Women’s Single Sculls (JW1x), Junior Women’s Double Sculls (JW2x) and Mixed Double Sculls. Events will be held on courses of 1000 and 500 metres based on the category.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation is hosting the Youth Water Sports Championships as an invitational event among its member countries to participate in events in rowing, kayaking, canoeing and sailing.
Sri Lanka, however, will only send a team of six rowers for the regional event, where participation will be made by teams representing Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand and hosts India. The entire cost including travel, boarding and lodging and local transportation of this six-day event will be met by the host nation India.

SRI LANKA ROWING EYEING MEDAL AT ASIAN GAMES...

French coach Pedro aims to change Sri Lanka rowing history with scientific training:

Being an island nation and blessed with many beautiful waterways, traditional rowing in Sri Lanka has been in existence for centuries with oarsmen navigating outrigger boats for fishing and transportation with ease. Rowing as a sport has a history of more than 150 years in the country but Sri Lanka’s rowers have largely been playing catch-up in the international arena. One of the main reasons is because rowing is an expensive sport and has been mainly confined to Colombo. However, all this could change in the future as the Amateur Rowing Association of Sri Lanka (ARASL) headed by Dimuth Gunawardena makes a concerted team effort to change the status quo of the sport island-wide.

Although Sri Lankans are passionate about rowing with regattas being held at the Colombo Rowing Club (CRC) and Bolgoda regularly, the transformation of a marshy land in Thalangama as a dedicated centre for rowing has produced a tremendous improvement in the standards of the sport. It was Gunawardena’s predecessor as ARASL president Rohan Fernando who first conceived the idea of having an international standard venue for the sport where races are held over a distance of two kilometres. At the CRC where the Nationals were held for 25 years, the water lane is only one kilometre. Having obtained the land in 2014 thanks to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was then Secretary of the Defence Ministry, the sport took on a new dimension with the birth of the Diyawanna Rowing Centre (DRC). More significantly rowers got a special course to train for international events.

The first stage of development, according to the ARASL president, was when a foreign coach Antonio came on an Olympic Solidarity programme to train local coaches. “That had a tremendous effect. As a result we have about 20 Level 1 coaches and seven Level 2 coaches. The timings at the Nationals also improved significantly with the boats moving faster,” he said.

The second phase was the introduction of the national pool concept in 2015 yielding results overseas. “In rowing there are four categories A, B, C and D. All these years we have only featured in the ‘D’ finals. But in 2017 at the Asian Rowing Championships, three of our six boats came to ‘A’ final. Suddenly everybody in Asia was surprised because we were unheard of in the rowing fraternity. Then in the 2019 Asia Cup, our ladies quad won a silver and a bronze,” said Gunawardena relating their progress.

DIFFERENT LEVEL

Now the ARASL is poised to take Sri Lanka rowing to a different level after getting the services of a professional coach Pedro Sanz Lopez as part of their long-term strategy to win a medal at the 2022 Asian Games. A three-time Spanish champion, Pedro has competed in the World Championships and World Cup. The Venezuela-born 35-year-old Spaniard based in Paris for the past nine years, has the experience of defeating the Chinese and Japanese rowers at the Pan American Games.

Pedro, who was selected from among 14 candidates for the task and will be assisted by local coaches Rifath Mohamed and Lahiru Herath, felt Sri Lanka rowing is heading in the right direction to achieve their goals.

“The good thing is we have an ambitious project run by Dimuth which includes para rowers, girls training in the pool and the best quads from men being selected,” said Pedro who aims to raise the bar with scientific training methods.

“Rowing has been here for 150 years. It is more a historical thing and a passion. To achieve high performance you need to get into the scientific part, not only rely on history,” he said.

METHODOLOGY

There has been a sea change to the methodology of rowing training since his arrival on the island in September.

“The new nutrition plan is a big thing. Rowers need at least 6,000 calories per day. The national body is providing this to all of the athletes. It is a big improvement. We have a larger perspective thanks to the new directive from Sri Lanka Rowing Association,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Observer.

He is aware of the reality of where Sri Lanka stands in the region but is confident of closing the gap.

“We are far away from Japan or China but we are going fast after them. I hope soon we will have all the material like weight training. Still there are a lot of things to do but everybody is working hard,” said Pedro who has been coaching national rowers for the past nine years.

He has also changed the perspective of choosing squads from either of the Armed Forces.

“There is a big change between team perspective and individual perspective. Rowing is the sum of all individuals. Each of them needs to be much stronger, grow much better and when we put them together in a team, they need to go much faster,” he explained.

PHILOSOPHY

With this philosophy now the Quad 4x for the Asian Rowing Championships in December comprises Army, Navy and Air Force oarsmen in the same boat. “Normally what happened before was there were four from the Navy, Army or Air Force. For the first time, we selected individuals with trials to test different people in the boats to see who is faster,” he said.

He is also focusing on improving the technique of rowers individually so they can contribute to uplift the team effort.

“The individual of a team needs to be strong as possible and as good technically as possible,” he said.

The rate of strokes is crucial in rowing but Pedro is not forcing the pace perhaps believing in the old adage slow and steady wins the race.

“As in any other discipline, when you do things really fast you lose precision. What we are focusing on in this first stage is doing things slowly. Look for quality perfection. For that you cannot do too fast. First everybody needs to get the basics right,” he said.

The average rate in training is 18 or 20 strokes per minute, he said.

“It allows you to not work to intensity too much, to work on aerobic capacity and take the time to work on technique. This is how we train. In a race it (rate) is more like 36 or 38. The closer you get to the race, we will increase it,” he said.

STRATEGY

ARASL president Gunawardena expressed his gratitude to the High Performance Programme (HPP) of the National Sports Council and the Department of Sports Development of the Ministry of Sports, for acceding to their request to get down a foreign consultant.

“We approached them last August. They (NSC) have selected about 11 sports under HPP basically to win a gold medal at the Asian Games 2022. This preparation is part of that programme,” he said.

“It’s a long-term strategy. You can’t just go to the Asian Games and think we can win medals. We don’t believe in that. Under the HPP we have to take part in any other international event. The only one before that (Asian Games) is the Asian Rowing Championship in December in Thailand. We are now preparing for that although there is not enough time. Still we hope to take part and do our best,” he said.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, ARASL was one of the few sporting bodies to conduct competitions.

“What we did was during a very difficult time. We took a very bold decision to have our senior and intermediate Nationals in March while other sports did not have the Nationals. From that we selected the national pool and they have been in training since May. During the lock-down, we put them in three different bio bubbles (Army, Navy and Air Force) all along this bank,” he said.

The ARASL have also taken a decision to send six juniors for a regatta in India next month.

“We had difficulty (selecting) because all schools are closed but we took hard decisions otherwise we can never do this. We have to get maximum from Pedro and our children also have to benefit. That is the second area we are looking at. First is the national pool, second is junior development. We are trying to have the school nationals very soon so that we select the best from that and put them into a junior national pool,” he said.

The third area is para-rowing as they look to attract civilians since Pedro has a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy. “He has experience not only in rowing but in physical aspects as well. We have a qualified para coach and two boats. Most of the athletes are from the Army because of the war. We also want to get civilians involved. Sport is very important for such people for their motivation and encouragement. Another thing to look at is the Paralympics in 2024,” he said.

TRAINING CENTRE

Gunawardena aims to upgrade the DRC into a high performance training centre for national rowers having signed an agreement with the Sports Ministry for a budget of Rs. 42m.

“This was a mud patch. With great difficulty we built this facility. We want to take it to the next level. For this we need an Ergometer, strength training equipment, ice baths, etc. Also high altitude masks where we can reduce oxygen level because to do practical high altitude training is difficult,” he said.

Gunawardena is pleased to get the VO2 max machine which is essential in rowing to analyse lung capacity. “China and Japan are spending billions. For the first time in history, Japan has a French coach. China has 2,000 athletes in the national pool and has a man called Steve Redgrave, the five-time Olympic champion. India is now getting a consultant,” he said.

The ARASL has also invested in a nutrition plan by giving athletes six meals a day comprising carbohydrates and proteins.

“We have to start looking at it like that. Athletes need to be taken care of properly. That’s a very important thing people need to understand out there,” said Gunawardena, who was ARASL secretary for four years before becoming president last year.

COMPETITIONS

Sithira Wickremasekera, a long-time vice-president of ARASL was of the opinion that Sri Lanka lacked both local and international competitions.

“After we had the SAF (South Asian Games) in 2006, I don’t think we had any sort of prominent international regatta in Sri Lanka. Thailand or India develop because they have international competitions. That adds value. Another thing is for the national pool we are depending only from the Armed Forces. Personally I feel there is a lot of talent all over the island,” he said.

As part of ARASL’s development plan, Bolgoda is set to host an ‘Eights’ Regatta among universities for the first time next year like the Oxford-Cambridge race.

“Bolgoda which has a course of 10km was the venue for the Nationals for three years when our former president Rohan Fernando came up with the idea ‘if we have to win international medals, we have to come up with a 2km arena’. At that time I had a property in Bolgoda which could host the Nationals,” said Sithira who fell in love with the sport after his two daughters Minuri and Ranula did exceptionally well in rowing, captaining Musaeus College and becoming national champions.

“I have not rowed but I love water. I thought I must support it,” said Sithira who formed Bolgoda Lake Rowing Club in 1998 where the Nationals were shifted for three years.

But since most rowers are from Colombo it became a logistical nightmare.

“Another disadvantage is that in Bolgoda you don’t see the finish (sideways). It was not all that spectator-attractive. For training it is a fantastic location. Then we got this property from the then president. This was a mud patch but because of our passion for the sport, slowly but gradually we developed this place,” said Sithira who manages DRC.

By Allaam Ousman
Sunday Observer
2021.10.31