Congratulations to the Wuxi in Jiangsu, 2010, Race Team! While the Beijing International Dragon Boat Team was not on stage to take first place honours, we were certainly the loudest and most likely happiest with our great results. This was the first time the team has completed a 500m race in under 3 minutes!
The majority of the team arrived early Saturday morning, off an overnight train from Beijing, and filed onto the team bus awaiting us. The rest of Saturday saw us check into the Hai Tian Grand Hotel, fuel up at our 11am lunch, getting the team together for a team meeting, and then heading off into the town of Wuxi for some team bonding. Mission accomplished with a successful ferris wheel ride, with the requisite cotton candy and ice-creams (thanks Wolfgang!). The day ended with an early team dinner, followed by Heming, Susan and Li Meng getting the final race details (and choosing lots for the race heats) at the Team Manager meeting.
Dragon Boat at Wxui
Race Day was an early start, out on the water for the first race at 8.30am. The organisers quickly learnt to let us board the boats first, regardless of lane order, to ensure we got to the race start line about the same time as everyone else! The first race saw us facing rougher waters than the team was used to, and bringing together the Beijing and University teams to race together for the first time.
Race Results
500m
Heat – 3:04:19 minutes
Semi Finals – 2:57:75
Finals – 2:40:14
Winning team clocked in a cool 1:56:62!
200m
Heat – 1:08:48
Semi Finals – 1:12:08
Finals – 1:05:78
Winning time 46:02
5000m
Finals – 32:12:78
Winning Time – 22:28:59
Congratulations to the team! And special congratulations to Heming, our fantastic Captain who was also awarded the very prestigious Best Drummer Award.
The team consisted of Heming, Susan, Iris, Joyce, Jen, Anna, Alicia, May, Sharon, Wolfgang, Ottmar, Toby, Toby’s Mum & Dad, Kevin, Gao Xin, Sundi, Li Meng and the great support from Li Meng’s university friends.
Lining up for a race
