2008 Washington D.C. Dragon Boat Festival · Rescheduled
It rained medals on the Cornell Club’s Dragon Boat Team on Sunday—silver at the 500-meter distance and bronze at the 250-meter distance.
Participating in Washington’s annual Dragon Boat Festival for the 6th straight year, CCW’s Big Red Dragons had to battle some very good teams in the Festival Division in every race.
All teams also had to contend with a torrential downpour on Saturday afternoon that forced cessation of all further racing for the rest of the day. So we huddled under CCWs wonderful new pop-up shelter until the storm abated somewhat.
Picture, if you can, 20 paddlers—Cornellians and friends—all pumped up and all lined up at the START when the Chief Referee sees lightning and commands all boats to dash straight back to the dock and get off the river. That, too, was a race. When the scheduled racing resumed the next day, our race was the first on the program. That's when we did well-enough to win the bronze medals to start the day. Then came the 500-meter races, in which our teamwork, spirit and technique carried us through more races to the silver medals at the end of the day.
