The Pacific Dragons enjoyed a race day at Penrith over the weekend at the DBNSW Race 4. For this regatta, we introduce Jo Paul, Rob Reyes and Diana Bernal to their first ever 500m regatta, welcomed back some familiar faces in Andrea Bedin and Lisa Green, and seen Ian Amos across to dragon boating! Some others found themselves in a race craft for the first time since our winter Hawaii campaign, or even the DB Nationals in April, but a good time was had by all.
The day started with PD Orange Is The New Black. Coach Julia announced the team list for PD Orange and called them Black in the sign-off! Order was eventually restored and everyone quickly figured out their crew.
The two PD mixed crews improved race upon race, in typical PD style, but it wasn’t enough for us to overcome some very strong teams who are geared up for a big dragon boating season in Australia. PD Orange came 3rd twice and PD Black was 2 x 2nd.
As PD Chicks and PD Men we fared better, with both teams reaching the finals, with the chicks bagging 5th and the guys getting bronze, behind two very fit teams in CYL and ACCA.
From this point, the Pacific Dragons have the state titles to look forward to (31st January) and Chinese New Year (20th Feb). We’ll look to spend more training time together in dragon boats while welcoming a lot of novice paddlers to our family. On that note, if you have friends who you would like to introduce to our very cool sport, give me a buzz.
Video footage are being edited and will be released shortly – stayed tuned to the PDs web site! We’ve shot footage of not only ourselves – I got handy with the camera and shot races involving other teams as well. Here’s a quick one to get the interest going. Enjoy the video, friends at Naga, CYL and Sydney Zodiacs!