At the opening ceremonies, there was a guest appearance from the Red Bull stunt pilot who entertained us with a 10-15 minute air show - I left shortly after and missed the concert and the opening speeches. On our way out Krysta and I were pulled aside by some athletes from the Polish team and were asked to pose for a pic.
Some Galley Girls representing in Szeged
Galley Girl contingent (minus Emilie) in Szeged at the opening ceremonies
Team Canada - walking proud
Posing with our competitors
The first day of racing has come and gone and Canadian teams have been very well represented on the podium so far.
12 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 1 bronze medal - that is almost 1 medal per race - a fantastic first start to what will hopefully be a consistent week of racing from all Canadian teams.
Canadian Premier Women (the team that I paddle with) won our race by a whopping 9 second margin - so start our collection off with this year. We were not racing at the Szeged Olympic paddling facility, rather the Tisza river - where we could benefit from the current in one direction which helped us to attain top speeds of over 20 km/h. It doesn't seem fast - but in a dragonboat, that's pretty fast (especially for a long distance race).
The Chinese are historically a very strong team, and we were concerned that we might not be able to compete against them, but we fared very well in the end.
Today we are racing the 1000m sprints. If we win our heat, we will go straight to the grand final. If we don't we will have to go to a reperchage (sp?) where the fastest teams will go to the grand final. Wish us luck!!
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