Sri Lanka oarswomen bring home first Asian medal

The Sri Lanka women’s rowing team won its first ever Asian rowing medal, a silver, after suffering a boat-length defeat to the Vietnam crew in the LW4X-Light Women’s Quadruple Scull event at the Asian Rowing Cup 2019 in Thailand.

The Sri Lanka oarswomen bagged their first silver medal at Asian level yesterday in the region’s top competition which will end today in Pattaya.

The Lankan crew comprised Tharika Weerasinghe (stroke), Maheshi Liyanage (three), Kanchana Weerakoon (two), Anuradha Soorasena (bow) were racing alongside the Vietnamese crew from the start. The Lankans managed to hold their nerves until the first 1,500 metres but the Vietnam crew took the lead in the final few metres, to win the gold medal by a boat-length.

Sri Lanka, competing in the outside course clocked 7.11.097 to claim the second place and the silver medal. Gold-medal winning crew, Vietnam, finished in 7.02.939 to claim a rather comfortable win.  Chinese Taipei, who raced in the inside-course, won the bronze medal in 7:31.233 minutes. They were way far behind Vietnam and Sri Lanka to finish third in the race.

North Korea, Hong Kong, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Iran, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia and Sri Lanka are the participating countries at the Asian Rowing Cup.