By Rob Chang

The handful of events that occur prior to the Toronto International Dragon Boat Race Festival are usually considered tune-up races. Among the selection that includes Wildwood, Orangeville and Guelph, it is commonly perceived that the best race in terms of venue, quality and competitiveness is the Pickering Dragon Boat Race Festival.

The 2001 edition of the University of Toronto Piranhas featured many new faces. Gone were 10 key members of the club, which included our drummer (who had blossomed into a great drummer the previous year), most of the engine room and a good portion of our pacers.

However, with change comes opportunity. During the winter reloading of the roster, the success from our previous season brought a fresh crop of eager applicants. As a result, the team heading into the Pickering races was decidedly much more powerful and much more committed than any before them.

First Race
Semi-Final
Final

Race Day

Heading into Pickering, we had one goal. Surprisingly, unlike most other teams, our goal was not to win. Our goal was to gain confidence. Confidence in the race plan, confidence in each other, and most importantly, confidence in ourselves. We were willing to throw a race to do so (although secretly none of us thought this would ever happen) since our ultimate goal was to win the Community Division of the Toronto International Dragon Boat Race Festival.

First Race

Our first race pitted us against some experienced crews, but none that can be classified as elite. We were slotted in lane 1 while the Golden Dragons, Komodo Dragons and Mackenzie Typhoons filled out lanes 2, 3 and 4 beside us.

Taking a step back and speaking from a coach's perspective, I must admit that I had an extreme attack of nerves at this point for the first time ever. Normally I am quite calm when any of my teams race. However, from the beginning of this year I have been telling the team they had a legitimate shot to win the Community Division at the Island, how the team raced this race would tell if they were really contenders or merely pretenders. Anyhow back to the story…

If we were as good as we thought we were, we expected to win this race quite handily. However, this was not to be the case. Although leading all the way, the Piranhas failed to gain the trademark separation that distinguishes elite crews from the good ones. The team finished in 2:17.42, while the Komodos were about one-fifth of a boat behind at 2.18.32. A decisive win (in water sports that is) but not a dominating one.

The thoughts began to cross my mind, "Are we not as good as we thought?" "Are the Komodo's better than before?" "Maybe the guys aren't used to the new race plan?"

Obviously, a talk with the team would reveal more ….

… And talk we did. Timing on the left side was off (the result of people missing practices), stroke rate at the start felt too slow and most importantly, everyone had more to give when they crossed the finished line (a definite no-no).

With that knowledge, I was satisfied. After all, Pickering is a tune-up. The team got their first taste of a race as a unit and with a radically different race plan. Everyone was confident that they could do better in the semi-final (goal achieved - so far).

When the first round of races was completed, we stood 10th overall and just out of the "A" division (a secondary goal I had but didn't care much about). The interesting thing about this was the team directly ahead of us was the Cartier Partners Tempest. A team that is coached by two teammates of mine on Canada Life (how's that for a rivalry?).

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Semi-Final

Our semi-final was a reunion of sorts in that every team we had ties to in some form or another. In lane 1 were the Komodo Dragons (from our first race), lane 2 had the TD CT Twin Dragons (a team that I paddled with 4 years ago), we were in lane 3 and the Killer B's were in lane 4 (a team we raced and beat in Pickering twice last year).

For me, this would mark the most nerve-wrecking race to date. This was the "no-excuse" race. We knew our problems and we had a time that was far off from the fastest time of the day (2:06.18). My goal was to get them to 2:10, which is a 7 second improvement.

Right off the start two teams separated themselves from the pack. Both the Piranhas and the Killer B's were racing away from the other two teams. Throughout the entire race the Piranhas held the lead and held off a furious late charge by the Killer B's at the end.

They finished the race in 2:10.01! Mission accomplished again.

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Final

With spirits running high and confirmation that we were the fastest community-level team in the festival (which included the highly touted Shaolin Monks), we knew that we were legitimate contenders for the Community Division title at TIDBRF. The fact that we still had some problems that were fixable and were already among the best gave us an additional mental boast. Confidence goal achieved!

Our sights were now set on beating the Cartier Partners Tempest. As mentioned previously, we had a natural rivalry built since both Tempest was coached by teammates of mine on Canada Life. Going into the final race we were the fastest team and we were determined to put them in their place. The fact that the Shaolin Monks were also in this race was additional incentive to win.

Moments before the final race, Shawn, our starting right 7 was nowhere to be found. After frantic attempts at locating him I decided to put one of our female subs into the boat - we only carried 2 subs, both girls. Armed with one practice and determination, Jaime hopped in.

By putting a female sub in, our crew was comprised of 9 females and 11 males. Despite the unvoiced but obvious hope of most of the crew for me to jump in and take Shawn's spot, I believed that this would be an excellent learning experience for the team. This was as much adversity and stress the team could get from this festival. Given our goal of trying to win the TIDBRF community division and with knowledge that the team will face a great deal of stress when they raced that race, I decided to give them some experience in paddling under adverse conditions. Something the team as a whole never experienced. As previously mentioned, we were willing to sacrifice performance for confidence and this is just what we did.

The lanes were lined up as follows, lane 1 had the Shaolin Monks, we were in lane 2, Tempest was in lane 3 while our old friends the Killer B's occupied lane 4.

Right off the start, Tempest jumped to a decent lead. The Piranhas mounted a comeback and began to gain throughout the latter stage of the race but the poor course layout came into play. Tempest's cox lost sight of the lane markers and came into the Piranhas' lane - while the Piranhas' had to move over to avoid a collision and thereby killing their forward momentum.

At the line, Tempest edged out the Piranhas while the hard-charging Shaolin Monks finished in third.

Given the circumstances, everyone was happy. Even through adversity, lane violations and fielding a less than optimal crew, the Piranhas were nipped at the finish line and were still able to beat the Shaolin Monks. Under those circumstances, silver in the "B" division looked pretty darn good.

Coming away from the festival we learned a few things:
1. We are as good as we think
2. We were the fastest community-level team at Pickering
3. We were still getting better

This translated into a great deal of confidence for the crew and another tick on my mental checklist of goals.

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