Rainbow Dragons breath fire to make regatta podium

Lennox Head’s Rainbow Dragon Women’s 20 team showed their power on the paddle defeating younger crews at a regatta.

DRAGON WIN: Lennox Head Rainbow Dragons were thrilled when their Womens 20s team earned silverware for their poolroom after they took out second place at the Currumbin Regatta.

The members of the Lennox Head Rainbow Dragons women’s 20s team earned silverware for their poolroom after they took out second place at the Currumbin Regatta.

The regatta which took place on April 18, was used by many clubs as a litmus test for how their training was progressing as it was held than three weeks out from the national Coast to Coast Dragon Boat Festival on the Sunshine Coast, from May 7 to 9, 2021.

Head coach, Mary Davis said the Currumbin Regatta involved 500m racing in women’s, mixed and open categories in small (10) and standard (20) crews on Currumbin Creek, Gold Coast.

“The racing against the Gold Coast Clubs is always strong,” she said.

“We can benchmark ourselves against younger teams.”

RAINBOW DRAGONS: The highly motivated Lennox Head Rainbow Dragons were thrilled when their women’s 20s team earned silverware for their poolroom after they took out second place at the Currumbin Regatta. Now they face more training ahead of the Coast to Coast Regatta next month.

Davis said this was important because Rainbow Dragons would then be racing in their own 40+ & 55+ years divisions at Coast to Coast next month.

“We will be in our age division which is good,” she said.

“The other Currumbin results were consistently first or second in their heats but the younger teams outtimed Rainbow Dragons for the finals.”

Davis said their competitors complimented the club for maintaining their power the entire 500 metres.

While pandemic uncertainty had cancelled the 2021 Australian Dragon Championships in Perth, the dragon boat community still wanted to come together, hence the Coast to Coast announced in early February.

Club representative Monica Wilcox said club coaches gave members a 12 week challenge to get fit, competitive and race-ready.

“We had 42 members signed up for the three day festival in 2km, 1km, 500m and 200m, small (10) and standard (20) boats,” she said.

“These comprised the mixed, women’s, opens and breast cancer survivors (BCS).”

Wilcox said COVID-19 meant race practice was rare so the club felt attended the Currumbin event before committing to the Urunga Titivators Regatta on May 1 and 2.

“Rainbow Dragon coaches are fired-up because they believe the club is fielding their strongest national team,” Wilcox said.

“In 2020 we were invited to compete at the club worlds (the 12th IDBF Dragon Boat Club Crew World Championships 2020) at Aix-les-Bains, but this was cancelled.”

However, Wilcox said members were pumped about the coming regattas.

“We train on the water Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons,” she said.

“New members are welcome, we will take you out for coffee afterwards”.