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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[dto]

Saturday:

... 'twas the 200 metre races ... all 63 of 'em!!!

Mixed, Open (i.e., Men), Women, Junior, Premier, Senior, GDs.

Not quite as much Oh Canada! as on Thurs/Fri.

In the Premier Mixed final, we were 4th - but just by a smidge:
-- China 44.80, U.S. 45.17, Austrailia 45.37, Canada 45.79, Germany 46.23, Macau 46.73

The Premier Open guys were 2nd in their Heat, but then were 3rd in their Semi, which dropped them out of the Major Final, into the Minor Final (what we would call the Consolation round).  They won that - so are 7th overall.  The top 6 were Phillipines, China, Great Britain, Australia, U.S. & Slovakia.

And the Junior Mixed crew were only a wee tick behind the Germans - again!

But the Seniors (Mixed, Men & Women), Junior & Premier Women, and GD Mixed & Men all won more gold medals.

Every team was FAST - there wasn't one time over a minute, the whole day.  Most were under 50 seconds.  The Phillipines men did a 42.16 & a 42.45.  Yow!

Finals:

Junior Mixed: 2nd
Premier Mixed: 4th
Senior Mixed: 1st (A crew), 2nd (B crew)
GD Mixed: won all 3 rounds

Junior Open: 4th (A crew), 5th (B crew)
Junior Women: 1st (B crew), 6th( A crew)
Premier Open: 7th
Premier Women: 1st
Senior Open: 1st (A crew), 9th (B crew)
Senior Women: 1st (A crew), 2nd (B crew)
GD Open: won all 3 rounds
GD Women: 3rd/3rd/2nd in the 3 rounds, but on 2-best times s/b 2nd overall (Aus 1st, U.S. 3rd)

-----------
Sunday:

500 metre races - Men & Women, in all the same age divisions.

Results are partly up - but no Finals yet.  Looks like the same trend: Seniors, GD Men, Junior & Premier Women out in front, Premier Men somewhat in tough (2nd in their Heat, to China, & 4th fastest across the 3 Heats), & the others in the mix.

Go Can-a-da!!   

[dboat village elder]

not sure where the rest of this thread went, but i heard the US won the nation's cup.

[stinkytofu]

US did, indeed, win the Nations Cup (by one point over China I believe).

Photos etc on this blog... http://web.mac.com/vhoecke/Sydney_2007/Home_.html

[dto]

OK, so I guess I've been able to spend time tracking all this (& banging on my keyboard late at nite) because my own paddling season is over!!

(or maybe I need to get a life ... whatever!)

And yeah, maybe I'm a little ticked at some of the negative comments (esp. the ones directly targeted at the FCRCC Mixed & Men) on a couple of the threads on the Net54 DB forum ... harruummphhh!!!!

But the real reason is this:

The folks representing Canada at this World Champs shindig are ordinary people, you know?  Not "carded athletes" supported  (however good or not that support actually is!) by the Cdn "elite national competition" system (Feds, IOC, etc.).  Not semi-pros or pros with commercial sponsorship.  Not even University athletes on scholarships.

Mere working smucks like thee & me.  Heck, even the Mixed/Open Coach (FCRCC's KJ) has a day job!

But this sport is invisible, eh?  No publicity, no news, no recognition outside the DB community ... and yet, while I think I personally like it that way, these ARE The True Worlds of our sport.  Team Canada was far & away out in front, medal-count wise.

Hey - my team practiced this past season in the same time slot as the FCRCC Men (they're the core of the Premier Open crew Down Under), & occasionally alongside the Mixed crew.  The guys used the same slimy FCCC showers & change-rooms afterwards that I did.  A few of them are past teamies, too - from Alpha's first couple of years.

Like I said, regular folks (jobs, mortgages, babies, stinky shoes from FC water, yadda-yadda).  Just better paddlers.  Than me, anyway!

More dedicated, too  - guess how many times a week they were training, even last November ... no, guess higher.

The FCRCC Mixed & Men didn't even know they were going to be Team Canada until somewhen round 'bout this year's Alcan (when the Eastern Canada - Toronto? - teams/clubs that had won the spot over FCRCC, at last year's NTT in Welland, dropped out).  FCRCC'd been shooting for the CCWC Qualifiers in Calgary in August (for the 2008 CCWC in Mayalsia), when all of a sudden ... "whups, boss, can I change my holidays? ... have I got enough room on my credit card to fly to Aus & spend 2+ weeks there? ... etc."

Are the guys fast?  Yup - a lot faster than anyone else here!  Watching them go by us at practice (during breaks, Coach!), it's like watching some "How To Paddle Correctly" training video.  Reach/rotate, catch, pull, exit, recover ... ALL together now.

Faster than anyone else in the world?  Well, no ... not this time around.  5th at 1K, 5th at 2K, 7th at 200m & 500m.  They might be a bit down-hearted - but they shouldn't be.  I KNOW they did their best, busting a gut EVERY time out ... that they represented Canada with class ... and that they cheered on all the other parts of Team Canada.

Make sure you give them a thumbs-up, the next time you see them!

The FCRCC-cored Premier Mixed: 2nd at 500m (by 0.51 secs!), 4th at 200, 1st at 2K (no 1K in that div'n).

Then there's the Premier Women (who are based back East, not FCRCC - I got that wrong, earlier - sorry!)  All (!) they did was be 1st at everything ... 200m/500m/1K/2K ... ho-hum, same as always, right? ... HAH!

Uhhhh ... if I were to say I LUV Fast Wimmen, would they smack me?  Would it hurt?

And all the Senior, GD, Junior crews, too ... all Down Easter teams, but with a few butts from here aboard (GDs, and some FCRCC ladies on the Seniors, I believe?).  Medals, medals, medals.

Anyway ...

I guess I just wanted to be sure anyone who looked at this thread knew how well ALL the Canada crews did (in particular "our" gang from the Left Coast).

Did I have anything to do with it?  Nope. Other than cheering them on!

Speaking of which ... YEAH, CANADA!

'Nuf said!

=========

Sunday - 500 metre races, Women & Open(men), all age categories:

Senior Open: 1st (A crew), 9th (B crew)
Senior Women: 1st (A), 2nd (B)
Junior Women: 1st (B), 3rd (A)
Junior Open: 4th (A), 5th(B)
Premier Women: 1st (d'oh!)
Premier Open: 1st in Minor Final (7th overall)
GD Women: 3rd (3rd/3rd/2nd in rounds)
GD Open: 1st (1st/1st/1st in rounds)

The U.S. crew won the Premier Open in 1:48.748.  Canada's 1st in the Minor Final was in 1:53.45.

Full Official Race Results are now up on the IDBF site: http://www.idbf.org/events_worlds.php

I can't find anything Official on the Nation's Cup.  It's not for the most medals overall, but for the most "medal points" (so many for Gold, so many for Silver) in Premier.  But I've seen it said in several places that the U.S. did indeed win it, by one point over China.  Congrats to them both!

The other Cups are all going to ... guess!

Not sure of the final overall medal counts - again, nothing Official - but here's one that looks about right:

COUNTRY   GOLD   SILVER   BRONZE
Canada     14      7      4
Australia    -        9         7
Germany     5     1      -
USA           3       1          4
China         1         3          3
Great Britain -       2       4
Phillipines   1         1         1
New Zealand -     -     1

================

Pardon me, but ... one more time:  YEAH CANADA!!

S'allright?

D

[glowing_ice]

dto, that's some of the most honest and nicest things ever said about the FCRCC crew.  that's the thing that a lot of people fails to understand.  everyone on the team is a normal working class citizen.  money, sponsorship and recognition is hard to come by in this sport.  i am so proud of our Team Canada!  (don't forget the Gorging boys and other guest paddlers that help represent our country).

[rightarm]

couldn't agree more... i guess its easy for those with a few thousand miles in between to criticize, but having personally seen and been in and around these great paddlers/people, i can't imagine anyone doing that.  they are amazing, and they did us all proud. 

[Colossus]

to clarify dto's post....

the only FCRCC women who went were on the premier mixed team, as well as the Senior women's team.  we didn't have any on the Premier women's team. 
Also, we didn't come 3rd in the 1000m open, i believe we were either 4th or 5th.  we did, however, bring home the gold in the mixed 2000m and the silve in the mixed 500m. 

I can't remember if its been mentioned here or not yet, but in our open 500m semi, a new world record time was set by the Philipino Open team.  then, in a race that was absolutely AMAZING to watch (we had just finished first in our Minor Final), the US Open team broke that new record and set a new one!  I hope that somehow, some video footage of that race makes it online.  it was an amazing race to watch.  Still though, i'm sure it won't be same as being there to watch it in person. 

The reality of it is, we were more or less a club crew competing at a national level, with the majority of us never having competed at that level before.  BUT, i think we did one hell of a job, given the short time frame we had to work with and the crews we had to compete against.  We were against some top notch crews and we were by no means outclassed.  We were right up there in the majority of the races, with some results being decided by split second differences. 

[dto]

Colossus: thanks for the correction wrt the Premier Women.  I mis-read some of the Profiles on the DBDU WDBC site, and the bits of news from AD/JT on the FCRCC web site.  I managed to read it right this time 'round?

That's what I get for doing it at 1 AM!  An s-bucks grande can help keep your eyes open - but it can't help them SEE.

Apologies to the Premier Women.  No insult intended.

They're still fast!  Even if they happen to live on the Winter side of God's Own Skyscrapers ...

And they still wear the Maple Leaf on their ... uuhh ... welll ... (maybe I better quit there) 

I went back & fixed up my earlier post, so no one need be upset.

=============

Yeah, the WR time in P-Open 500m Final was mentioned - several places.

Bit of math: figuring 20 secs to top speed, the U.S. time works out to 18.2 Km/h top speed.  Hooo!

The FC Men's Minor Final time works out to 17.4 Km/h.  Still Hooooo ...

The simple Hull Speed estimate says a 39' DB can go 15 & a bit Km/h - after that, it's all UP hill.

Marine math is not my kind of Engineering (bits & bytes & volts, baby!).  Don't know how the DB hull form, water-line length, & so on, nor the water conditions, depth, etc., really figure into "over this speed, it's impossoble".

But I'll bet it felt like it!

Sure does to me, whenever my team's trying to get to the magic "2-minutes-anna-tick" ...

=============

Don't go down the "club crew" & "first time" route.  No need to.

"National versus club", and "first time" is what a few of the Net54 posts have grumbled about.

Yeah, you were & yeah, it was.  So what?

To me, it was Team Canada who went Down Under.

Walk proud!   

D

[Colossus]

just two photos to throw up on here:
on our way to the minor final start line

on our way to taking first place/7th overall, more or less in time. 

[Backward Rowing]

Once again, congrats to all the Canadian crews, and other national crews, that were there.  You are the envy of all dragon boaters.

[James Cole]

[brainiac]

This is a (west coast) Canadian forum with a natural tendancy to focus on our local athletes but I think we should all congratulate our southern neighbours on their tremendous performance in the Premier Open 500m.