Dragon boat team arrives home with world titlesLocal paddlers win international medals
BY MICHELE McLEAN
October 2, 2007 11:43 AM
Members of the Canadian Junior Dragon Boat team are returning home following the world championships in Australia.
The club, with members from the Fairport Aquatic Club, West Rouge Canoe Club and 44 paddlers from Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate, won seven medals, including two golds, at the championships which ran Sept. 19 to 23.
The Canadian Junior Dragon Boat team competed against teams from Germany, Australia, China, Great Britain and New Zealand.
Janice and Randy Robertson are the parents of Sean Robertson, 18, a captain of one of the teams. Sean decided to take an extended holiday and stay in Australia for a couple more months.
"I was so proud of these guys," Janice said, who added her son has been a dragon boater for more than five years.
"To get 22 paddlers in a boat and get them synchronized is an awesome task for anyone to do. Praise goes out to their coach, Scott Madil, for his training and support."
The team members are teenagers who got up on their own at 5:30 a.m. to train, she said.
Sean, along with Jenna Corcoran, who is captain of the women's team, will be graduating from Mowat this year.
"What a send-off for them," Janice said.
Parents of the paddlers waited anxiously to hear how the teams were doing, while they were at the championships, Janice said.
Updates on the team's status were sent by e-mail from parent Nancy McCutcheon, who was in Australia with the paddlers.
"She was our lifeline from down under," Janice said, adding she provided the parents back home with race results, sometimes in the middle of the night Toronto time.
"We would get all the statistics, and everything that was going on, e-mailed to us," she said. "We were all sitting here on pins and needles waiting."
Lisa Abbott, a paddler on the Canadian Junior Dragon Boat team, said she had an amazing experience in Australia.
"I think we made Canada proud, not only with our amazing race results, but also with good sportsmanship and camaraderie we showed to the other countries. No one expected that when we won our race we would look up to see the German team waving the Canadian flags we had given out," she said.
Australian children put Canadian maple leaf tattoos on their foreheads and cheered for the Canadian team, she said.
"Overall I think we did a great job of representing Canada and all that our country stands for," Abbott said.
http://www.mirror-guardian.com/Sports/Scarborough/article/31786
