Swimmers from St. Joseph’s College came up with flying colours to win the Overall Championship at the 34th Age Group Swimming Championship worked off at the Sugathadasa Swimming Pool, Colombo, on Saturday.

Ananda College, Colombo, finished second with 362 points while St. Joseph’s collected 553 points to clinch the championship. Third place was won by Trinity College, Kandy, with 43 points.

Meanwhile, in the Women’s Category, the Overall Championship was won by Musaeus College, Colombo, who collected 287 while Mahamaya, Kandy, were runners-up with 260 points. Hillwood College, also from Kandy, finished third with 207 points.

There were eight records established on the third and final day on Saturday.

Heshan Unamboowe, ‘The flying Trinitian’ established seven records, including two set on the final day. Unamboowe broke the first age group record on Saturday, when he improved on his own record that was set recently. He finished the Boys’ Under-19 100-meter Backstroke event in a time of 1:01:30 seconds, improving on the previous record that stood at 1:24:00 seconds.

He established his second record when he finished the U-19 50-meter Freestyle in a time of 24.42 seconds to beat the previous record of 25.42 set by Chathuranga Perera in 2001.

South Asian gold medalist Mayumi Raheem of the Rainbow Aquatic Club, who surpassed local swimming legend Deepika Chanmugam’s 22-year-old record earlier, did it once again on the final day in Girls U-19 100-meter Breaststroke event.

She broke Chanmugam’s record when she clocked 1:15:06 seconds to beat the 1:21:18 seconds record which stood for 22 years. Mineka Karunaratne of Asian International School, Colombo, also did well with a time of 1:18:38 seconds also improving on Chanmugam’s record.

Raheem also went on to establish a new age group record by clocking 28.56 seconds in the U-19 50-meter Freestyle improving on the previous record set by Menaka de Silva in 2003.

Machiko Raheem of Rainbow AC, the younger sister of Mayumi, also established two new age group records on the final day. She clocked 2:22:99 seconds in the Girls’ U-14 200-meter Freestyle and went on to establish her second record in the U-14 100-meter Backstroke event when she finished with a time of 1:15:29 seconds.

The other age group records were set by Miniruwani Samarakoon of Gateway International College, Kandy and Nadeera Jayasekara of Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo. Samarakoon clocked 2:40:34 seconds in the Girls’ U-19 200-meter Butterfly event while Jayasekara clocked 1:23:59 seconds in the Girls’ U-14 100-meter Breaststroke.