St. Joseph’s, Mahamaya champs at Age Group Aquatic C’ships
Thirty one records were shattered at the 40th annual Milo Schools All-Island Age Group Aquatic Championships held at the 
Sugathadasa Swimming Pool Complex in Colombo. St. Joseph’s College Colombo and Mahamaya Girls School Kandy emerged overall champions of the event which was held for four days, from June 18 to 21, with a participation of over 2000 swimmers from across Sri Lanka.
At the end of the fourth day of the competition, overall boys’ winners St. Joseph’s had accumulated a tally of 622 points with Royal College Colombo completing at second with 558 points. Ananda College Colombo finished overall third with 410 points to their credit. This was the tenth consecutive occasion when St. Joseph’s managed to win the overall championship of the 40-year-old competition. Thus the Josephians retained their title for the tenth time since 2004, without being challenged by the remaining contenders of closer to 150.
In the girls’ category Mahamaya outnumbered the rest to gather 614.5 points and secured their title for the 15th year running, since 1999. Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo finished way behind second with 406 points as Ladies College managed to secure the third place with 335 points.
In general the four-day competition shattered 31 records with nine coming in the opening day, eight each on the second and third days and six on the final day. Ananda Colombo and Mahamaya Kandy took major honours in the junior boys’ and girls’ championships respectively. In the senior category St. Joseph’s and Visakha Colombo were the top teams in boys’ and girls’ categories. Royal Colombo and Bishops College won the overall boys’ and girls’ championships respectively at the diving competition.
The competition featured 164 events in six age categories including 140 individual and 24 relay events with championship trophies on offer forboys and girls in junior, senior and overall categories which were successfully defended by St. Joseph’s and Mahamaya Girls’ School.
From the schools that participated, 80 were boys’ institutions with 54 girls’ schools competing for glory. In addition 46 mixed schools entered the fray along with other top schools from the main cities and its suburbs. The most number of schools represented the Western province which numbered 68. Central and Southern provinces were represented by an equal number of 
schools, 28 each with 16 schools entering from the Sabaragamuwa province. Uva and Wayamba provinces fielded 14 and 12 schools respectively while eight schools representing the North Central province. The competition also attracted five schools from the Eastern and a school from the Northern provinces.
The opening ceremony of the Milo Schools All-Island Age Group Aquatic Championships was held on June 18 under the patronage of A.B. Abeyratne, the Director of Sports for the Ministry of Education while the closing ceremony took place on June 21 under the patronage of Minister of Education, Bandula Gunawardene.
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