Pulling together - 20 as 1 (Ithaca IDB Fest)

by Stephen Li

On a cloudy and breezy morning, DC Dragons gathered on the grassy banks of the Fingerlakes river in Ithaca. With all the top premier teams entered in this event and thunderstorms predicted during the day we were prepared for an eventful day.

Time Trials – Two 250m back-to-back

We all understood the importance of the 250ms: Aim - to get one of the top 6 fastest times (average) to qualify directly to the upper semi-finals and be in a position to grab those all important ERDBA points. We only had one chance to do this and we needed to nail it down, we were up against New Jersey and DCH III … As we lined up at the start, we knew that the course was narrow, so our starts needed to be strong; the sooner we were ahead of the other boats the better chance we would have of qualifying as one of the top teams. The start was called and we were off!!! Our start was average, both NJDBC and DCH III had started well and it was a fight to the finish line all throughout the length of the course. We were just edged out by DCH III as we crossed the finish line. The race itself didn’t feel good as we were rocky and had rushed during parts of the race such that our steerer, Ken was almost thrown off the boat!

Fortunately this meant we had room for improvement in the second time trial. Before we knew it, we were back in the start line racing the same teams. Somehow, we didn’t manage to nail our starts again leaving us in a similar situation to the first heat with all boats side-by side. The difference this time however was our power after the transition as we maintained a more consistent rate throughout. This enabled us to forge out a convincing lead on the other boats as we powered home winning the heat. Much better race and we had the fastest average time in our heat. Was this to be enough? Unfortunately not and we ended up being the 9th fastest crew of the day for the time trials. This meant we had a much tougher path if we still wanted to qualify for the upper semi-finals.

Heat one 500m’s

First heat of the 500ms was next and the task in hand was to win the heat in order to qualify for the upper semifinals. We were up against DCDB, Baltimore, and Gotham Thunder. Staying focused was crucial as we knew we need to get 1st place and that was the only thing in our minds… The start was good! Our boat and Baltimore blasted off the start line and had developed a big lead over the other boats. There was nothing separating us and Baltimore, it all came down to experience and who wanted it more! As we reached the final 50m it seems that Baltimore were slightly ahead of us. We could only trust in our training and provided a hard ‘bring it home’ to the lines. Even at the finish line it was difficult to know who had taken it. Some of the Baltimore crew had started celebrating. When the official results were published it turned out we had edged out Baltimore by one 10th of a second!!! Amazing result and what a fight!

The Rain Delay

Still on a high from our previous race’s win, the skies opened up and a downpour had begun. Thunder to be heard with sightings of lightning around the race sight, paddlers began to frantically tie down their tents and ran to their cars for cover. We waited anxiously to find out from the organizers whether the race was to be cancelled. This wait continued for almost two hours until rays of sun broke through the clouds and the organizers announced, to the delight of many, that the racing begins again!

Upper Semi-final 1

With the sun finally shining beautifully, the real racing begins. We found ourselves in with the big boys. Only 1st in the heat goes through to the ‘A’ grand finals. We were up against team MAD and Wall Street Dragons Black and Wall Street Dragons Gold. Certainly no slouches and all these teams were a lot faster than us during the time trials. With some modifications to the team line-up we knew we had a huge task in front of us but like true warriors we were prepared to battle with everything we have. Our strong start allowed us to remain in touch with every boat at the beginning and we battled on gamely throughout the race. However, the top teams proved they had too much quality as they etched a lead on us as we trailed in 3rd place. We did, however managed to achieve a fast enough time (9 second improvement from heats!) to go into the ‘B’ finals.

B Finals

Final race of the day and we were more motivated than ever to put in our best performance yet. We were up against DCH II and Wall Street Dragons for a second time. Our powerful starts proved to be our strongest weapon against the calibre of these top teams; after the 30 strokes of the start we were leading all boats. We went into our transition and reaches and continued to lead for the race. Wall Street Dragons was gaining on us slowly with every stroke, again and again we reached it out, power never dropped throughout but Wall Street kept biting at our tail and towards the last 100m line we were level… All we had left was our finish but Wall Street had a more powerful finish than us and managed to cross the line in front of us… We came in 2nd which meant 6th place overall. This proved to be a great result as we had beaten some very good teams. Great weekend of racing and the team left satisfied knowing we had put in a performance which we can be proud of.



From Near to Far: DC Dragons, NY Wall Street Dragons, DCH Racing II, Ithaca Gorges Dragons