Sri Lankan Swimmer Bags Six Golds at SAG

Highest tally of South Asian Game medals

Reading through Matthew Abeysinghe’s track record tells a story in itself – about an American-born swimmer who underwent a sea change into something rich and strange, and brought honour and glory to his country of adoption: Sri Lanka.

Born in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, in 1996, the 181 centimetres tall athlete weighing in at 85 kilogrammes boasts a golden history (quite literally, at that) in the waters of many swimming arenas at diverse venues.

Having first participated internationally at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, the son of Sri Lankan parents who relocated to his motherland in 2010 represented his new home country and was ranked 13th overall by competing in the boys’ 200 metres freestyle.

Abeysinghe then proceeded to swim competitively at 2016’s Summer Olympics in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, followed by the Commonwealth Games 2018 on Australia’s Gold Coast and the Asian Games in Jakarta in the same year.

But it was at the South Asian Games held in India in 2016 that Matthew’s mettle as a champion swimmer floated to the surface and shone in the sun, carving out a niche for himself and the name of the country he now represented.

In addition to a bronze in the 50 metres backstroke, and silvers apiece for his part in the 4 x 200 metres freestyle and 4 x 100 metre freestyle medley events, Abeysinghe won a veritable panoply of gold medals.

The champion swimmer was Sri Lanka’s leading medallist at the 12th SAG – surpassing fellow Olympian Julian Bolling’s 1991 record for being the islander athlete with the largest haul of medals; in fact, Matthew Abeysinghe counts the highest tally of medals at a single South Asian Games in any sport from any country!

And he also became Sri Lanka’s first aquatic athlete to earn a FINA (International Swimming Federation) World Championships qualifying standard. It was competing under this banner at the 2013 Asian Youth Games that he won a bronze in the 100 metres freestyle event, thereby becoming the first Sri Lankan to win a medal at an Asian Games meet.

The champion swimmer was Sri Lanka’s leading medallist at the 12th SAG – surpassing fellow Olympian Julian Bolling’s 1991 record for … the largest haul of medals