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Colombo Rowing Club clinch Deepan Trophy
By M. Shamil Amit

Winners of the Ladies A Fours, Madras Rowing Club take a break after winning the event. They are: Vasavi Sunderam (bow), Gowri Adappa (stroke), Sneha Vasudevan (3), Urvashi Venkat (2), Shivetha Ravi (cox). Madras RC beat Colombo RC by four lengths.

Winners of the men's B pairs Colombo Rowing Club Devaka Seneviratne (stroke) and Sanjeeva Perera (bow) of Colombo Rowing Club relax after winning the event. CRC beat Madras Boat Club by one and a half lengths. Pictures by Dunstan Wickremaratne.

Colombo Rowing Club emerged the overall champions at the 66th Madras-Colombo Regatta held at the Beira Lake yesterday. The meet which was last held in 1998 came to a standstill due to unavoidable circumstances and was revived after a lapse of four years. Colombo Rowing Club finished with 26 points while Madras ended with 16 points. The cheif guest was Indian High Commissioner Nirupan Sen who gave away the trophy.

The dual between the two sides started way back in 1898 and from available statistics it is regarded as the oldest inter-club boat race anywhere in the world. The oldest boat race between two institutions is said to be the famous Oxford-Cambridge encounter.
At the inception of the dual meet it was just a boat race but gradually it grew into a full fledged Regatta event of fours, pairs and sculls for both men and women. The Madras Boat Club (MBC) led by M.J. Sanjaya consisted of 15 men and six women while Colombo Rowing Club (CRC) led by Lakmal Wickramage had 17 men and six women to fight out the event in the water for the nine events conducted in the afternoon along with the veterans four event.

The meet started with Colombo RC 'B' Pair, Sanjeewa Perera (bow) and Devaka Seneviratne (stroke) putting them in an early winning their event by one and a half lengths with a timing of 3.27 secs. The Madras BC struck back by taking the Ladies fours event rowed by Vasavi Sunderam (bow), Gowri Adappa (stroke), Sneha Vasudevan (2), Urvashi Venkat (3) and Shwetha Ravi (cox) winning the race by an easy four lengths.

Udesh Hettiarachchi of Colombo RC sculled his way through to easy win over Madras BC's B. Harsha with a timing of 3.48 secs. Colombo RC went ahead when the 'A' Pair Usman Fatharally and Dilruk Aluvihara got the better of the Madras pair by two lengths. Madras BC won the next two events winning the 'A' Sculls race when R. Sriram had his own way beating Heshan Henry easily, while Madras BC's ladies pair Urvashi Venkat and Gowri Adappa too had an easy win over the two Niroshini's of Colombo RC.

Madras BC won the Ladies Sculls event too with Swathy Sanjaya beating Colombo RC's Niroshini Wanigasuriya. Colombo RC won the 'B' Fours men's event comprising of Devaka Aluwihare, Asiri Abhyaratne, Prajith Perera and Sanjeewa Perera while Madras BC's crew B. Dushyanth (bow), R. Sriram (str), G. Vishwakarthik (2), C.E. Palaniappan (3) and Ritesh Gopinath won the best race of the evening which was the 'A' Fours event overcoming the Colombo BC's fours comprising of Udesh Hettiarachchi (bow), Devanka Seneviratne (str), Usman Fatharally (2), Diluk Aluwihare (3) and Sharen Kannangara (cox) in a thriller winning it by half a length. The veterans fours race was won by Colombo RC.

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