Tharusha Perera takes on Australian Open Water Swimming Championships to set example for South Asian community

Open water swimming possesses a unique allure. Tharusha Perera deeply understands the freedom and benefits that can be experienced in the vast ocean, equipped with nothing more than a swimsuit and goggles.

The Year 12 student's voice rose with excitement when he described his feelings in the open water during an interview with ABC Sport from his home in Melbourne. "You feel weightless," Perera said. "When I got into open water, it felt like a whole new, incredible world." He added, "In the ocean, you're competing against each other, but it's all like... you can't control it. You can't control the environment, the weather, the waves, all those factors."

Tharusha has always loved swimming. When he was two and a half years old, after moving to Australia from Sri Lanka with his parents, his father, Kasun, recognized the importance of learning to swim and immediately enrolled him in swimming lessons. "My parents thought it would be a good idea to get me into swimming lessons so I could learn to swim for survival," Tharusha said. This was very welcome for him. "Growing up, I realized I enjoyed it more than any other sport," he said. "I played a lot of sports as a kid, but swimming was the only one I felt truly connected to. When I was nine, my dad decided to put me into a swimming club for the first time. I guess that's where my swimming journey began."

Since then, his progress has steadily increased. Tharusha was drawn to distance events, beginning with 800m and 1500m races in the pool. But when he was 11, encouraged by his coach, former Commonwealth Games gold medalist Kelly Stubbins, he truly opened up to the possibilities of open water and was immediately captivated. Now, he is a strong contender for medals in the 5km and 10km events in the 18-19 year age group at the Australian Open Water Swimming Championships in Busselton, Western Australia this week, having also competed at the World Junior Championships in Alghero, Italy last year.

Being drawn to the longer, more strategic version of the sport was no accident. In addition to enjoying the physical challenge of battling from buoy to buoy in the ocean, Tharusha's own physical attributes have guided him towards open water, rather than the pool. "Yeah, I'm quite short," Tharusha said with a laugh. "So for me, doing sprint races is very difficult, competing against those 6'7" guys, it's really hard to keep up with them. But from then, I realized that height doesn't really matter in open water. It's more about endurance and how you really stick to and execute your race plan properly. That really gives me an advantage over other people."

Tharusha's efforts in the water are not just for personal achievement or medals. His goal is to be a role model for the entire community. According to the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, a quarter of Australian adults are either weak swimmers or cannot swim at all. The RLS's 2024 National Drowning Report, released last October, showed that 323 people drowned in Australia in the past financial year, with 25% of them born outside of Australia. A 10-year study by the RLS estimated that one-third (34%) of those who drowned in Australia were born overseas. Tharusha's parents are among them, like many other people who have immigrated to Australia. A 2022 survey by the University of New South Wales Beach Safety Research Group found that nearly half of the 249 migrants from South Asian countries surveyed admitted they could not swim. Incredibly, they indicated they were still willing to enter the water.

With very few swimmers from the South Asian diaspora competing at the highest levels of the sport, Tharusha says it's important to show where swimming can take you, regardless of where you come from. "It's extremely important because open water is not a very popular sport in Sri Lanka," Tharusha said. "The biggest sport in Sri Lanka is cricket, and for the whole of South Asia, it's all about cricket. So bringing Sri Lanka into open water is a really important thing for me, so I can inspire future generations and show how far you can go in the swimming world. If I can pave a way for South Asians in open water, that would mean a lot to me."