Toronto...most boring city in the world? Brisbane...most controversial team in world dragon boating?

Well it is a great place to dragon boat but I am not sure why you'd visit esp if you fly into the city and so get a better view than being up the CNN tower.

For those following the dragon boating it was excellent. The bodies were huge and the Germans toasted in the sun next to us sans sunscreen became bronze. We did well as a crew, making three semi's (in all but the 200m mixed). And this is where the contraversy began......da.da...da

As everyone had to pay their own way, and you don't get any change out of $3000, to make the trip worthwhile we "picked up" just under half a boat of Canadian paddlers for both under 40 years and above 40 years. And we "clicked" so instead of getting crushed we started to be a threat to make the finals (unlikely to win however just not powerful enough but having a very good technique).

Such a surprise that, allegedly, one of the other Australian teams, make a complaint to the officials. To keep paddling we were given a special lane, lane zero. The first two times I was wondering "why did we get this?" but after our other crews also got lane zero it became apparent there was a problem.

Lane zero ran through shallow water. The effect was that the German crew we beat in the heats by 1+ boat lengths then beat us by 1+ boat length with us in lane zero. Whatever. It was just awesome to paddle and learn from the experience.

BEST EXPERIENCE
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Worth the trip was the 2000m. Just as sprinting is for the dumb - they can only run in straight lines which are roped off after all :) - the 2000m is boats chasing each other 10 seconds apart. You chase and are chased around the three turns occurring each 500m.

Luckily I am a left paddler so I got to see the three in front reaching out from the boat at 45 degrees.

The highlight was catching the boat 10 sec in front and 20 sec in front and getting sandwiched in between, paddles clashing due to the suction created by the boats. Dan got a paddle in the back of the head that drew blood.

the lowlight was a strategy error that killed us. Instead of resting on the heels of boat 3 the sweep tried to overtake as we hit the turn and from a 1/4 boat lead we came out -1 boat down (obviously never run track - it was like trying to overtake someone in lane 3 on the curve rather than waiting to the straight and powering past). Not learning from the mistake it was repeated (ahhh I'm screaming in my mind all over again) at turn 3 again pushing us -1 length back. Still the first time our sweep had ever raced it and should have had a bit more advice (or run distance).

we made some of this back just failing to run over them on the final 500m by about 2 seconds.

wow it was fun, a different hurt from both the 200m and 500m taking about 10 minutes Vs 1-2 minutes. My sort of pain.