Royal ends eight year drought

~ 34th Royal-Thomian Regatta

By Harry Jayachandra, Pic by Ranjith Perera

A drought of eight years ended amidst heavy rain at the Beira Lake yesterday. Royal led by Maalik Aziz easily defeated S. Thomas’ in their 34th Annual Regatta to annex the T. Noel Fernando Memorial Trophy by 40 points to nil.

The Reid Avenue boys dominated the early proceedings rowing into a 20 point lead before the customary interval. Thus the pressure was on the Thomians to win the last two races. But any hopes the boys from Mount Lavinia had, were drowned as the victors won the Junior Fours by a massive margin of 21 seconds.

The victorious Junior Fours team comprising of Chirath Karunanayake, Miyuru Dias, Radika Weerasekara, Lakkitha Liyanage and Thivanka Jayatilake.

Royal set the trend in very first event when skipper Aziz won the Senior Sculls. His deputy Dinouk Perera won the Junior Sculls. The Royalists showed the form they were in by winning the C Fours in a time of 3.24, while the Thomian timing was 3.45.

The one sided affair continued as the Royalists won the Junior Pairs, but were given a severe scare in the Senior Pairs. Trailing with the finish line in sight, the Royal pair of Chirath Karunanayake and Perera put in a fine effort to defeat their opponents by just four seconds. This set the platform for Royal’s victory.

Following the victory in the Junior Fours Royal put the proverbial icing on the cake. Their Senior Fours (Boat Race) comprising of Devinda Fernando, Dinouk Perera, Mahima Weerasinghe, skipper Aziz and Lishan Wickramayake won the race which sparked off wild celebrations at the Colombo Rowing Club which as usual was filled for arguably the sporting and social event of the year. The only consolation for S. Thomas’ was a victory in the Old Boys Race.