Dasun grabs five golds

Leslie Fernando

The promising swimmer from Royal College Dasun Perera performed the best, winning the highest number of gold medals five in all at the National Short Course Swimming Championships conducted by the Sri Lanka Aquatic Sports Union (SLASU) and held at Hillwood College swimming pool, Kandy.

Sri Lanka’s champion male long distance swimmer and free style specialist Dasun having had a break of training for three months due to GCE Ordinary Level examination last year where he obtained A’s for all subjects, Dasun restarted training under coach Julian Bolling again at Rainbow Aquatic Club. Under the guidance of Julian he was fortunate to receive further training in Bangalore, India.

Dasun returned straight for the National Short Course Championships and not only won the 1500 metres free style event for which he represented Sri Lanka at the inaugural South Asian Swimming Championships held last September 2007 but also won the 200 metres and 400 metres free style events easily with timings of 2.03 secs and 4.24 secs respectively.

In the 1500 metres he was able to achieve a timing of 17 minutes 33 seconds which is now the best ever timings recorded at Short Course championships. In addition he won two more golds in the 4 X 100 metres and 4 X 200 metres free style relay.

Dasun started swimming at the tender age of 8 years and has had great success in the Sri Lanka Schools conducted swimming championships and the Sri Lanka Aquatic Sports Union swimming meets. He is one of our bighters future male swimming prospect for the country.