Tempe, AZ Dragon Boat Festival
Teammates,
The official race results are available on the festival website:
http://www.azdba.com/Festival/festival_index.htm
We competed in the Mixed, Open and Womens division. For the gender races we combined with our new friends the L.A. Thunder Dragons and the local team Gila Dragons. The Mixed team advanced to the Comp A Semi-final where we placed third (only first place advanced). The Open (mens) team just missed advancing to the finals by .6 seconds. The womens team, however, advanced to the finals where they finished fourth against San Diego, Wasabi and B.A.D. Keep in mind this was a combined 3-team boat that had no practice time together. Way to go KG women! In the Collegiate division, USC finished third and has improved significantly over last year. Great job everyone!
As our first race of the season, Arizona was a valuable experience. The new team members got their first taste of racing, we had fun and made new friends and most importantly we saw how we measure up to our competition. Although the team did well, we still have work to do. Our competition has been training hard and it showed at Tempe.
We welcome the challenge that competition presents us. It will help push us to greater achievement. Already the team members who raced at Tempe want to get better and train more. I’m sure those who didn’t get to go to Tempe want to get in the game. Now is the time to get fired up and re-dedicate yourself to practice. Now begins the important training. We have the technique and we’ll develop the physical conditioning over the next four months. And we’ll race to gain experience and the confidence to achieve our goal: Comp A finals in San Francisco!
What can you do to help?
Attend as many practices as possible .
Participate in the team challenges and fitness tests .
Race, race, race! LB Spring May 11, Toronto June 21-22, Long Beach July 25-27, San Francisco October 4-5.
Recruit new members.
I hope this message gets you as excited about participating in KG as I am! The Killer Guppies are at the edge of something great this year. If we all do our best we will succeed. Anything less will give our competition the opportunity to pass us.