Sri Lankan duo wins gold at World Masters games

Nawaff Mubarak and Piyal Hewage brought glory to the country by winning Gold medals in swimming at the World Masters Games held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada recently.

The duo's Gold medal winning performance came in the 4x50 metres medley relay event in the 150 combined age group category. Mubarak and Hewage both of Otter Aquatic Club joined two Canadian swimmers Gilles Deschenes and Ryan Heggie to edge out a mixed Australia New Zealand team to Silver and a US team to Bronze. The age groups for the Masters Swimming are selected by adding up the ages of the participants.

The other age categories were combined 160 and combined 175. Mubarak (26) swam the Breaststroke lap and Hewage (39) the final Freestyle lap with Heggie and Deschenes swimming the Backstroke and Butterfly. The team swam in heat 2 in the event. Canada, Germany, Australia, UK, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and China all participated in the relay.

The Masters swimming events were held at the Kingston Stadium pool from July 22 to 28 with 56 countries participating. Over 100 countries took part in the Games held every four years. The next World Masters games will be held in Sydney, Australia in 2009.