Dragon Boat Races

As part of the Festival, all of the countries participate in the Küçükçekmece Lake Festival Dragon Boat Races. There are a bunch of dedicated groups in both men's and mixed divisions, and the Festival countries competing in the mixed. The boats consisted of 10 paddlers, a drummer, and a local who was steering at the helm. Since we had 20 people, and some didn’t want to paddle, we ended up with two teams. We had Canada 1 who was in green, and Canada 2 in blue, with Jordan, Sophia, Crystal and I paddling for both teams.

We got to see a few races before Canada 1 got called to the water, we taxied to the starting line, and started our race. It was a tough paddle for the 500m, and we just squeaked through to qualify for the semi-finals in the first bracket. We got out of the boat and took an “after race” picture, then the four of us that were racing for Canada 2 got ushered to our boat, as we were racing again, back to back (it felt real great on the arms and back).

 

With Canada 2 we totally cleaned up in our heat, winning by a full boat-length. Which got us into the semi-final on the other bracket. After the race it was time to sit under our tent and rest a short bit before the semi-finals started. Canada 1 was in the first one, racing against two other boats, and we got blown out of the water, coming in last; although it didn’t help that our helmsman had us all going all over the lane. Again it was a back to back race with Canada 2 going straight away into the second semi. It was a more hard fought battle and we scraped our way through inching into second. Thus we had Canada 2 going into the finals. We had a one race break while the men’s final was raced, then went into the final. It was another tough race, but we managed to fall short, coming in last, by almost a boat length. But considering we were doing this just for fun, and only managed to get beat by the Kyrgyzstan team (which actually practiced and trained for the event) and two dedicated dragon boat teams, I think we did really well.

After that being quite exhausted, we headed back to the hotel, and grabbed showers. The lake has become so polluted that fish can’t even live there, and there was a bit of splashing and such in the heat of the moment during the races. A bunch of us skipped dinner at the hotel and went out to a small cafe to have donair, and it was delicious. Chicken donair on rice and the tea was amazing. There also were full length windows completely open which gave a nice view of the street.

Finally, it was our “special night of the groups” back at the hotel, where we did our presentation of Canada. We went through the anthem, a brief talk about Canada and how we fit into it and its multiculturism being Ukrainian, and with Ukrainian dance. We taught them how to line dance with Cadillac Ranch, then showed off a couple of costumes and taught some solo steps and then did a mini-kolomeyka.