There was an energetic atmosphere at Mooney’s Bay June 17-19, when Ottawa’s 18th annual Tim Horton’s Dragon Boat Festival hosted an estimated 70,000 spectators.
The festival featured on-site entertainment activities such as multicultural performances, live music and a beer garden. Of course, these were sideshow attractions to the main event, which saw over 190 teams paddle dragon boats in a race against one another.
During the dragon boat races, pledges were raised for community charities. This year’s goal was to raise $350,000. According to the festival’s development officer, Meaghan Davis, the yet-to-be-finalized total sum raised this year is $305,000.
The Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation’s main goal was “to provide free family entertainment to the community, to provide high quality opportunities for our paddlers and to raise funds for the community,” Davis said.
This year, 194 teams, consisting of over 5000 paddlers, participated in competitive, corporate and community groups. A new dragon boat race began every nine minutes, with 15 challenge cup categories being contested and a final tally of over 1,500 medals awarded to victorious paddlers.
The Foolish Sport Chicks brought home a fair amount of those medals, coming in first place in Block 1 of Challenge Preliminary Race 1 and second place in the Women’s Mix Final.
“This is my first time participating but I will definitely participate again next year. It was a really fun experience with so much energy,” said Laura Wilson, a member of the team.
“I didn’t know how our team did but when we checked the record, we came in first. That felt awesome.”
Liu Dental Centres, meanwhile, participated in their sixth dragon boat race as a team this year. Their motivation for staying involved so long, according to Liu brothers Dean and Eugene, has been “the fun and charity.”
The team came in first place at Block 3 of Challenge Preliminary race 21, and followed that up with another first-place showing at the Challenge Final. They also placed in fourth in the Tim Horton’s 500m Open Mixed Championship and 2 K Final. Add to that a second-place ranking in the mixed category, and it was a very successful outing for them.
“When there are 22 people jammed in a small space, you have to get along,” said Eugene after his race.
He stressed that attendance at practices, organization and especially teamwork were very important.
The racers were not the only ones who enjoyed the festivities, either.
Shirley Petrice, who came to watch her son’s race at the festival, said this was her first year in attendance, and she hopes it won’t be her last.