The annual Colours and Special Sports Awards Ceremony of S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, was held on Thursday 28 November on a grand and colorful scale with Naomal Goonewardene, a distinguished old boy, former Aquatics triple coloursman, Victoria Gold Medalist and Head Prefect of the College as Chief Guest. Goonewardene was accompanied by his wife Prof Sampada Goonewardene, the Warden, Sub Warden, Director of Sports and Head Prefect of the School, who led in procession to the College Hall by senior prefects bearing the national, college and house flags and the College Hewisi Band.
Dellon Peiris, Deputy Head Prefect and former 1st XI cricket captain, delivered the welcome address representing the senior sportsmen of the school, in the course of which, he enumerated the achievements of the chief guest during and after his school career and also shared some valuable thoughts with the future sports leaders of the college based on his own experience of having captained a successful 1st XI team.
The Warden, Rev. Marc Billimoria, then presented a brief report of activities and significant achievements for 2019 in sports such as Cricket, Athletics, Basketball, Boxing, Fencing, Football, Hockey, Rifle Shooting, Rowing, Rugby, Sailing, Scouting, Swimming, Table Tennis and Tennis. He pointed out that even though STC had won only five of the inter-collegiate encounters with traditional rivals Royal College, Thomian sportsmen had done well on the whole. He mentioned that for the first time in years more than 14 Thomian sportsmen from 8 different sports had been chosen to represent the country in national teams of different age groups, namely Cricket (3), Rugby (1), Sailing (5), Chess (1), Swimming (1), Water Polo (1), Soccer (1) and Athletics (1). He highlighted the achievements of the Thomian Cricket 1st XI that not only regained the coveted Rt Hon. D. S. Senanayake Shield by beating Royal College convincingly after 12 years at the 140th Royal-Thomian cricket encounter but also went on to win the Under 19 Limited Overs and T20 tournaments, emerged runners-up in the U19 two-day tournament and were also crowned the Best All Island Schoolboy Team for the second consecutive year. He also highlighted the achievements of Thomian athletics, mentioning the resurgence that had taken place under the captaincy of Tharusha Kulasinghe who became the national Under 18 100m champion this year at the John Tarbat meet as well as the National Schools meet. The Warden also spoke about plans for the future of Thomian sports under the direction of the newly appointed Director of Sports Dinesh Kumarasinghe and the Sports Council of the College
The Warden stated that in order to develop sports, junior level academies for four other key sports would be set up to join cricket where the academy concept was pioneered in 2014. He finally went on to share some of the challenges the school is facing in the running of a successful sports program such as the constant struggle to achieve a proper and harmonious balance between academics and sports in school, maintaining discipline of sportsmen on and off the field of play, funding the sports program, facing old boy and parental expectations, playing schools that do not always share the same philosophy and principles of school sports and managing 25+ sports with a relatively small number of sportsmen. In doing so he also pointed to some of the ways these challenges are being met by the school in order that the primary stakeholders who are the present students would ultimately benefit.
The Warden’s speech was followed by a video presentation showing the various achievements during the year under review of each sport. The Warden then awarded and re-awarded School Colours to 157 senior Thomian sportsmen for 18 different sports.
A new award proposed by the Director of Sports, namely the Warden’s Cup for the Best Disciplined Senior Sports Team, was then presented by the Warden to the 1st XI cricket team which won it based on a set of objective criteria set down and selected by a panel of senior staff.
The Chief Guest in his inspiring speech while congratulating the winners of School Colours and other awards and commending the role of sports in education, urged the boys to consider their options in relation to sports very seriously bearing in mind their future plans beyond School. He advised sportsmen to be wise when making choices that would impact their professional careers. Mr and Mrs Goonewardene then gave out the special awards and trophies.
The Warden presented 11 sportsmen with the Warden’s Gold Medal for exceptional achievement in their respective sports short of representing the country in the national first teams. The Warden Neville de Alwis Trophy for the Most Outstanding Junior Sportsman was awarded to N. M. M. Perera and the Brookie D’Silva Memorial Shield for the Most Outstanding Senior Sportsman was awarded to K. D. T. D. Kulasinghe - the senior Athletics Captain, for his many outstanding and significant achievements during the year under review in Athletics at both College and National level. K. K. V. Perera, the Thomian ‘Demon Bowler’ and emerging national team member and D. Nanayakkara, who emerged 3rd in an International Sailing event representing Sri Lanka were awarded the highest honour by a Thomian schoolboy – the Thomian Blue.
Rahal Rambukpotha, the 1st XI Hockey captain proposed the Vote of Thanks after which the Warden announced the names of the new captains of the senior teams for the year 2019 / 2020 and they took the Captains’ Oath.
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