Day 6 (Saturday): 200m Women’s and 500m Mixed
Today is the greatest day in history of PD dragon boat racing, and is something that I’m finding very difficult to put into words!
Today we proved that we have some of the best PD Chicks in the world. We snatched gold from the Russians in a very competitive field after narrowly winning our heat and heading straight to the 200m grand final.
Today we also proved that we have the best Mixed Crew in the world! Going into the 500m Premier Mixed Final we looked at the crews we were up against – 2 amazing Canadian crews that have dominated this competition, and also won all the medals in Penang, the Singapore crew that beat us in the 200m yesterday, and a tough German crew and thought, hey, bronze would be an incredible outcome. I think we all raced the race of our lives and pulled out something special.
We nailed the start with the 4 biggest strokes I’ve ever felt, and shot out past the other crews. We ramped up our 30 start with body and catch then transitioned with an almighty thump, still ahead of the Canadian crews beside us. We held on, getting stronger and stronger each stroke down the course, even pulling away. Then D called a lift, and we all got bigger, taller, there was another lift, and another, finally D was calling us home and a final lift. I thought I could barely move my arms for the last 20 strokes. Luckily my body ignored my brain and just kept going the way it has been trained to do. There was no way we were going to let the Canadians surge past us on the finish. We raced the most extraordinary 500m final. 1:59.7 – the fastest time of the day, 0.7s ahead of the Canadians.
PD’s you rock!
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