Heshan and Miniruwani excel in England

Leslie Fernando

Heshan Unamboowe of Trinity College established four Sri Lanka records and Miniruwani Samarakoon of Gateway International School, Kandy set one record at the 9th World Short Course Swimming Championships held in Manchester, England.

The special feature was Heshan swimming in four events and establishing records in all the events. Two of the Sri Lanka records were held by Heshan.

His new record timings were 50 metres back stroke 27.79 secs, the earlier record 28.62 secs, 50 metres free style 24.88 secs. He erased off Daniel Lee record of 24.98 secs. In the 100 metres backstroke timed 59.94 secs, Heshan's old record was 1:00:27 secs.

In the 100 metres free style, Heshan 'clocked' 54.09 secs to beat the earlier record held by Daniel Lee 54:98 secs. A fine achievement by Heshan Unamboowe who is strongly tipped to gain selection to swim at the Beijing Olympic Games in August. Miniruwani swam in three events and established a new Sri Lanka record in 200 metres Butterfly stroke with a time of 2:35:61 secs. She held the previous record 2:38:48 secs.

Her timings in the other two events 50 metres butterfly stroke - 32:68 secs and 100 metres butterfly stroke - 1:11:17 secs. It is noted that both Heshan and Miniruwani timings has improved tremendously and shared perform well in the future meets.

Over 1000 swimmers participated at the five -day meet and 18 new World Records were set.

Heshan and Miniruwani returned to the island on Wednesday.