Lankan Venuki wins bronze in international artistic swimming

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Sri Lankan Venuki Wijesena clinched a bronze medal on the opening day of the 17th Singapore Open Artistic Swimming Championships at the OCBC Aquatic Centre. The event, running from December 13 to 17, marked the first international outing for the Sri Lankan Age Group team since 2019.

In the 13-15 years Youth Figure Competition, Venuki Wijesena secured third place with 62.0060 points, while Kihara Goonetilleke claimed the sixth spot in the 11-12 years age group with 58.3623 points.

In the same age category, Amara Watson Kittle ranked 23rd with 54.5845 points, and Aheli Joseph secured the 47th spot with 46.6135 points out of 63 participants.

The 13-15 years Youth category saw Ayla Watson Kittle at the 24th position with 53.8424 points, Satvi Arjuna at 33rd with 51.0000 points, and Sanuki Suraweera and Andrea Thirukumar at 35th and 36th places with 50.6849 and 50.5818 points, respectively, among 52 participants.

A total of 17 participants from Aurora Synchro Club, Ladies College, Musaeus College, and Visakha Vidyalaya are competing in various age groups. Akhry Ameer, the Team Manager, emphasized that the team’s primary goal is to gain international competition experience after a prolonged break due to setbacks in recent years.

Artistic Swimming has undergone rule changes during the pandemic, and although SLASU has adopted new rules for this year, the swimmers will be adapting to a hybrid rule setting in Singapore. Dehara Katipearachchi, a former Asian Games and Commonwealth Games athlete, supervises the team as the Head Coach. The team is expected to showcase their best performance in the remaining two days of the competition, featuring over 220 artistic swimmers from various Asian countries and clubs.