Minagi shatters Kimiko’s decade-old national record
Minagi Rupesinghe
Minagi Rupesinghe of Killer Whale Aquatics (KWA) shattered the 11-year-old Women’s 100m Backstroke Senior National record on Day 3 of the five-day HNB National and Junior National Short Course Swimming Championship, held at the Isipathana College Swimming Pool Complex in Colombo yesterday.
The 20-year-old Rupesinghe clocked 1:03.17 to claim the gold, erasing the previous mark of 1:03.28 set by Olympian Kimiko Raheem in 2014. This is Rupesinghe’s second individual national record in the meet, having already broken the 400m Individual Medley record on the second day and contributed to a 4x100m Freestyle relay record on the opening day.
Meanwhile, in the Junior National category, Rushalee Dissanayake of Musaeus College continued her record-breaking spree by setting the fourth individual Junior National record in the Girls Under-15 800m Freestyle, lowering her own previous record of 9:55.21 by an impressive six seconds to 9:49.21.
Dissanayake, 14, who trains at Rainbow Aquatics, finished with an extraordinary 43.32 second lead over silver medalist A.N. Sathsarani of Lyceum International School, Wattala, who clocked 10:32.53. Dissanayake had also anchored two relay records for Musaeus College earlier.
In the Boys Under-15 category, Mark de Zylva of St. Joseph’s College broke the 800m Freestyle Junior National record with a time of 9:18.87, surpassing the previous mark of 9:29.28 set by Malawara Arachchi of S. Thomas’ College Mt. Lavinia in 2024. Fellow St. Joseph’s swimmer Sakindu Pigera also bettered the previous record, finishing second with 9:26.27.