‘Dragon gods’ bless weekend
The ATB Lethbridge Rotary Dragon Boat Festival wrapped up at Henderson Lake on Sunday with some phenomenal competition and some fantastic weather. Race chair Karren Johnson said it was a little bit touch and go weatherwise on Saturday, but in the end the great dragon spirit smiled down on the racers and spectators who came out to enjoy the three-day festival.
“We’ve decided the dragon gods have come and blessed our weekend,” said Johnson with a grin. “Saturday, we got off the water just in time and we got almost all of our races in. We just had two exhibition races we had to cancel when the downpour came.
“Today, it has been pristine dragon-boating weather. The atmosphere has been amazing, and the friendship and the camaraderie has been really great.”
Russ Neys, whose Oil City Crew Dragon Boat Club came down from Edmonton to compete, couldn’t have agreed more with Johnson’s assessment.
“It’s been fantastic, and you could not ask for a more fun festival to come to,” he said while waiting for the B final mixed competition to start. “It has been competitive, but the atmosphere has been great. It’s just good, honest fun.”
The big winners on the weekend were the excited spectators who came out to enjoy the races, agreed most of the racers and organizers. But the winner on the lake this year was CDBC Crew Yahoo from Calgary. Crew Yahoo placed second at last year’s Dragon Boat Festival, and felt they had unfinished business in Lethbridge this year.
“We have taken this race a couple of times in the past,” confirmed Crew Yahoo captain Kevin Ruddell.
“We wish the team that beat us (in 2017) were here this year, but nonetheless its always good to have that feeling when you get first place. It felt really good out there on the water today.”
Crew Yahoo appeared behind at the midpoint of the race, but Ruddell said that is where his crew’s previous experience on Henderson Lake paid off.
“There’s an aerator or something in the lake about halfway where we knew the boat just drops,” he said. “So we knew it was coming, and we knew we had to paddle through it and keep going.”