Being an island nation and blessed with many beautiful waterways, traditional rowing in Sri Lanka has been in existence for centuries with oarsmen navigating outrigger boats for fishing and transportation with ease. Rowing as a sport has a history of more than 150 years in the country but Sri Lanka’s rowers have largely been playing catch-up in the international arena. One of the main reasons is because rowing is an expensive sport and has been mainly confined to Colombo. However, all this could change in the future as the Amateur Rowing Association of Sri Lanka (ARASL) headed by Dimuth Gunawardena makes a concerted team effort to change the status quo of the sport island-wide.
Although Sri Lankans are passionate about rowing with regattas being held at the Colombo Rowing Club (CRC) and Bolgoda regularly, the transformation of a marshy land in Thalangama as a dedicated centre for rowing has produced a tremendous improvement in the standards of the sport. It was Gunawardena’s predecessor as ARASL president Rohan Fernando who first conceived the idea of having an international standard venue for the sport where races are held over a distance of two kilometres. At the CRC where the Nationals were held for 25 years, the water lane is only one kilometre. Having obtained the land in 2014 thanks to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was then Secretary of the Defence Ministry, the sport took on a new dimension with the birth of the Diyawanna Rowing Centre (DRC). More significantly rowers got a special course to train for international events.
The first stage of development, according to the ARASL president, was when a foreign coach Antonio came on an Olympic Solidarity programme to train local coaches. “That had a tremendous effect. As a result we have about 20 Level 1 coaches and seven Level 2 coaches. The timings at the Nationals also improved significantly with the boats moving faster,” he said.
The second phase was the introduction of the national pool concept in 2015 yielding results overseas. “In rowing there are four categories A, B, C and D. All these years we have only featured in the ‘D’ finals. But in 2017 at the Asian Rowing Championships, three of our six boats came to ‘A’ final. Suddenly everybody in Asia was surprised because we were unheard of in the rowing fraternity. Then in the 2019 Asia Cup, our ladies quad won a silver and a bronze,” said Gunawardena relating their progress.
DIFFERENT LEVEL
Now the ARASL is poised to take Sri Lanka rowing to a different level after getting the services of a professional coach Pedro Sanz Lopez as part of their long-term strategy to win a medal at the 2022 Asian Games. A three-time Spanish champion, Pedro has competed in the World Championships and World Cup. The Venezuela-born 35-year-old Spaniard based in Paris for the past nine years, has the experience of defeating the Chinese and Japanese rowers at the Pan American Games.
Pedro, who was selected from among 14 candidates for the task and will be assisted by local coaches Rifath Mohamed and Lahiru Herath, felt Sri Lanka rowing is heading in the right direction to achieve their goals.
“The good thing is we have an ambitious project run by Dimuth which includes para rowers, girls training in the pool and the best quads from men being selected,” said Pedro who aims to raise the bar with scientific training methods.
“Rowing has been here for 150 years. It is more a historical thing and a passion. To achieve high performance you need to get into the scientific part, not only rely on history,” he said.
METHODOLOGY
There has been a sea change to the methodology of rowing training since his arrival on the island in September.
“The new nutrition plan is a big thing. Rowers need at least 6,000 calories per day. The national body is providing this to all of the athletes. It is a big improvement. We have a larger perspective thanks to the new directive from Sri Lanka Rowing Association,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Observer.
He is aware of the reality of where Sri Lanka stands in the region but is confident of closing the gap.
“We are far away from Japan or China but we are going fast after them. I hope soon we will have all the material like weight training. Still there are a lot of things to do but everybody is working hard,” said Pedro who has been coaching national rowers for the past nine years.
He has also changed the perspective of choosing squads from either of the Armed Forces.
“There is a big change between team perspective and individual perspective. Rowing is the sum of all individuals. Each of them needs to be much stronger, grow much better and when we put them together in a team, they need to go much faster,” he explained.
PHILOSOPHY
With this philosophy now the Quad 4x for the Asian Rowing Championships in December comprises Army, Navy and Air Force oarsmen in the same boat. “Normally what happened before was there were four from the Navy, Army or Air Force. For the first time, we selected individuals with trials to test different people in the boats to see who is faster,” he said.
He is also focusing on improving the technique of rowers individually so they can contribute to uplift the team effort.
“The individual of a team needs to be strong as possible and as good technically as possible,” he said.
The rate of strokes is crucial in rowing but Pedro is not forcing the pace perhaps believing in the old adage slow and steady wins the race.
“As in any other discipline, when you do things really fast you lose precision. What we are focusing on in this first stage is doing things slowly. Look for quality perfection. For that you cannot do too fast. First everybody needs to get the basics right,” he said.
The average rate in training is 18 or 20 strokes per minute, he said.
“It allows you to not work to intensity too much, to work on aerobic capacity and take the time to work on technique. This is how we train. In a race it (rate) is more like 36 or 38. The closer you get to the race, we will increase it,” he said.
STRATEGY
ARASL president Gunawardena expressed his gratitude to the High Performance Programme (HPP) of the National Sports Council and the Department of Sports Development of the Ministry of Sports, for acceding to their request to get down a foreign consultant.
“We approached them last August. They (NSC) have selected about 11 sports under HPP basically to win a gold medal at the Asian Games 2022. This preparation is part of that programme,” he said.
“It’s a long-term strategy. You can’t just go to the Asian Games and think we can win medals. We don’t believe in that. Under the HPP we have to take part in any other international event. The only one before that (Asian Games) is the Asian Rowing Championship in December in Thailand. We are now preparing for that although there is not enough time. Still we hope to take part and do our best,” he said.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, ARASL was one of the few sporting bodies to conduct competitions.
“What we did was during a very difficult time. We took a very bold decision to have our senior and intermediate Nationals in March while other sports did not have the Nationals. From that we selected the national pool and they have been in training since May. During the lock-down, we put them in three different bio bubbles (Army, Navy and Air Force) all along this bank,” he said.
The ARASL have also taken a decision to send six juniors for a regatta in India next month.
“We had difficulty (selecting) because all schools are closed but we took hard decisions otherwise we can never do this. We have to get maximum from Pedro and our children also have to benefit. That is the second area we are looking at. First is the national pool, second is junior development. We are trying to have the school nationals very soon so that we select the best from that and put them into a junior national pool,” he said.
The third area is para-rowing as they look to attract civilians since Pedro has a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy. “He has experience not only in rowing but in physical aspects as well. We have a qualified para coach and two boats. Most of the athletes are from the Army because of the war. We also want to get civilians involved. Sport is very important for such people for their motivation and encouragement. Another thing to look at is the Paralympics in 2024,” he said.
TRAINING CENTRE
Gunawardena aims to upgrade the DRC into a high performance training centre for national rowers having signed an agreement with the Sports Ministry for a budget of Rs. 42m.
“This was a mud patch. With great difficulty we built this facility. We want to take it to the next level. For this we need an Ergometer, strength training equipment, ice baths, etc. Also high altitude masks where we can reduce oxygen level because to do practical high altitude training is difficult,” he said.
Gunawardena is pleased to get the VO2 max machine which is essential in rowing to analyse lung capacity. “China and Japan are spending billions. For the first time in history, Japan has a French coach. China has 2,000 athletes in the national pool and has a man called Steve Redgrave, the five-time Olympic champion. India is now getting a consultant,” he said.
The ARASL has also invested in a nutrition plan by giving athletes six meals a day comprising carbohydrates and proteins.
“We have to start looking at it like that. Athletes need to be taken care of properly. That’s a very important thing people need to understand out there,” said Gunawardena, who was ARASL secretary for four years before becoming president last year.
COMPETITIONS
Sithira Wickremasekera, a long-time vice-president of ARASL was of the opinion that Sri Lanka lacked both local and international competitions.
“After we had the SAF (South Asian Games) in 2006, I don’t think we had any sort of prominent international regatta in Sri Lanka. Thailand or India develop because they have international competitions. That adds value. Another thing is for the national pool we are depending only from the Armed Forces. Personally I feel there is a lot of talent all over the island,” he said.
As part of ARASL’s development plan, Bolgoda is set to host an ‘Eights’ Regatta among universities for the first time next year like the Oxford-Cambridge race.
“Bolgoda which has a course of 10km was the venue for the Nationals for three years when our former president Rohan Fernando came up with the idea ‘if we have to win international medals, we have to come up with a 2km arena’. At that time I had a property in Bolgoda which could host the Nationals,” said Sithira who fell in love with the sport after his two daughters Minuri and Ranula did exceptionally well in rowing, captaining Musaeus College and becoming national champions.
“I have not rowed but I love water. I thought I must support it,” said Sithira who formed Bolgoda Lake Rowing Club in 1998 where the Nationals were shifted for three years.
But since most rowers are from Colombo it became a logistical nightmare.
“Another disadvantage is that in Bolgoda you don’t see the finish (sideways). It was not all that spectator-attractive. For training it is a fantastic location. Then we got this property from the then president. This was a mud patch but because of our passion for the sport, slowly but gradually we developed this place,” said Sithira who manages DRC.