International Dragon Boat Racing

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Ronan O'Connor
Posts:1
Joined:Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:50 pm
International Dragon Boat Racing

Post by Ronan O'Connor » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:53 pm

Good Afternoon,

I am originally from Castletownbere Co Cork but have been living in the London area for the past 5 years. During this time I started paddling Dragon Boats and Outrigger Canoes. My club is Kingston Royals and this year we have won the mixed 200 and 500 metre events at the UK Dragon Boat National Championships in Nottingham. Our Ladies crew also won the 200 and 500 metre event.

Kingston Royals has a proud tradition of supplying the Great Britain Ladies and Premier Teams with crew members. In 2007 Sydney World Championship there were 9 out of 20 ladies from Kingston Paddling for the GB women’s crew. The same year we had one paddler in the men’s premier and 3 in the senior crews.

Being Irish I really would not get the same fulfilment racing with the GB crews as the guys at my club but I would really love to race at an International level. Given this I would like establish an Irish Dragon Boat Association and enter an Irish Dragon Boat crew at the World Championship in Prague next summer.

Dragon Boat racers come from various backgrounds but Kayakers and Canoeist are especially situated as they have the paddling basics and general strength.

I have got the Support of a venue where the Irish DB crew can train together in the spring and summer of next year. What I need now is to judge if I can get enough interest from the Kayak and canoeing community in Ireland to establish a competitive crew to race in Prague.

If any of your members are interested in forming an Irish Dragon Boat Association and would like to train and eventually race next year then please give them my contact details.

I can then take it to the next stage and gain affiliation with the International Dragon boat Federation.

Dragon Boating is an excellent way to participate in water based sports at an international level. This is mainly due to it being relatively unknown until pretty recently. Any good paddlers can nearly be guaranteed racing on the international stage, paddling for Ireland

Many thanks

Ronan O’Connor

0044 7841419558

[email protected]

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