A team of 10 young sailors has qualified to represent Sri Lanka at the IODA (International Optimist Dinghy Association) Championships for Asia and Oceania. The event will be held off the coast of Mussanah, Oman during the first week of October 2019.
“This event is the top-ranked event on the sailing calendar for our junior sailors, and we are delighted that we are able to field a full team this year”, says Yachting Association of Sri Lanka (YASL) Sailing Convener, Asanka Goonewardene. “Participating in this event is a great opportunity for our young sailors to compete alongside the best in the world, and the experience they gain and bring back with them is invaluable for the development of the sport at the school and national level”.
The Sri Lankan team for IODA 2019 comprises children from St. Thomas’s College, Mt. Lavinia, Ladies’ College, Colombo, and Royal College, Colombo. The competitors are: Shashenka Fernando, Enalka de Silva, and brothers Dhanika, Nikhil and Tharen Nanayakkara (St. Thomas’s), Tarini de Silva, Lara Gunawardana and Taalya Tranchell (Ladies College) and Udan Marapperuma and Manthisa Gunasekara (Royal College).
The team was selected after trials conducted in June this year by the Yachting Association of Sri Lanka, and approved by both the Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Education. Since then, the team has been training hard under experienced National Coach Krishan Janaka, with the support of Sri Lanka’s Olympian sailor Lalin Jirasinghe and the assistance of YASL and the Sri Lanka Navy. The Team Manager is Jayantha Gunasekara, who is also the Teacher-in-Charge of Royal College Sailing.
The Ceylon Motor Yacht Club has also been magnanimous in its support and encouragement for youth sailing over the course of many years, and has generously provided its premises and facilities on the Bolgoda Lake for school-children to train. This team has benefited greatly from the support of the CMYC.
This year the team has also been extremely fortunate to garner the support of TASS, who came forward to provide physical training for the team as a sponsorship package.
TASS specialises in developing tailor-made physical training programmes to improve strength and conditioning for individual sports.
Sports Scientist Thanura Abeywardena and his team have come onboard to help the young sailors to achieve the level of fitness they need to compete at international level, focusing on strength, conditioning and injury prevention. The structured physical training programme has been invaluable to the young athletes and the generous support of TASS is greatly appreciated by both the team and YASL.
Even in the short space of time that TASS had to work with the athletes, Coach Janaka says there is a noticeable improvement in their on-the-water performance.
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