2024 was the inaugural year of the CanAmerican Club Crew Championships, an event that is held in tandem by Dragon Boat Canada and the United States Dragon Boat Federation on non-Club Crew World Championship qualifying years. The 22Dragons dragon boat racing club went to Welland, ON in great numbers, sending the following 13-boat fleet:
- 24U Mixed Standard Crew
- 24U Women Standard Crew
- 24U Open Standard Crew
- Premier Mixed Standard Crew
- Premier Women Standard Crew
- Premier Open Standard Crew
- Senior A Mixed Standard Crew
- Senior A Women Standard Crew
- Senior A Open Small Crew
- Senior B Mixed Standard Crew
- Senior B Open Small Crew
- Senior C Mixed Small Crew
- Senior C Women Small Crew
24U – True Grit
True Grit Mixed – 1st
22D’s 24U mixed boat came to nationals with intentions to defend their 1st place in the 24U-PS Mixed category. Their 500 m heat started their journey on a high note, finishing in first with a time of 1:54.93, 2.5 seconds ahead of the second place finishers, PDBC. In a turn of events, during the semi finals, PDBC edged out True Grit for the first place. True Grit finished in second with a time of 1:56.74, 1.1 seconds behind PDBC. Knowing what was on the line, True Grit started to feel the pressure, they had to defend the title. In the 500 m final, True Grit finished in second with a time of 1:55.36, 0.22 seconds behind PDBC. After this race, morale took a blow, but they were able to channel their disappointment and anger into the 2k, finishing in 1st place with a time of 8:55.49 with a lead of 3.6 seconds. On the second day of racing, the 200 m day, True Grit started strong with a first place finish in the heat with a time of 46.09. In the semi-final, True Grit finished first with a time of 45.32 but had not yet been able to race against PDBC on the 200 m since the 500 m loss. Even if in terms of times, they were faster than PDBC, they couldn’t know for sure because they had not gone head to head. The grand final had come and this race would determine which team would get the gold overall. Everything was on the line. True Grit finished first in the 200 m final with a time of 44.91, leading by 0.25 seconds. This placed them in a hard fought first place overall, earning them the gold medal. This is the second gold medal in a row for True Grit’s mixed team.
2000 m drone footage: https://youtu.be/adIQBUPL_dQ
True Grit Open – 2nd
In their 500 m heat, they finished second with a time of 1:58.91. The 500 m final will go down in dragon boat history as one of the tightest races. The results were so close that they had to add a decimal to the times. Matt and Mike went to protest the results, calling for a tie since the race course could not be guaranteed to be accurate to mere millimetres. True Grit open finished in second with a time of 1:56.348, 0.002 seconds behind NDRC. On the finish line camera, this is equivalent to pixels. A huge disappointment for the guys, but just like for mixed, they intended to channel this energy into their other races. In the 2000 m race, a race that did not lack any action, they finished in third with a time of 8:44.25 seconds away from the first and second place. With the race day coming to an end, the results they got were not what they expected. On the second day of gender racing, they finished second in the 200 m heat with a time of 44.77. In the final, they finished in second place with a time of 44.36, 0.09 seconds behind NDRC.
True Grit Women – 2nd
The True Grit Women finished in second with a time of 2:16.41. In the final, they finished second with a time of 2:10.50, 1.42 seconds behind NDRC. In the 2000 m race, they finished in second with a time of 9:44.18, with the top four finishing within 3.25 seconds of one another! In the 200 m heat, they finished in second place with a time of 50.83, 0.25 seconds behind Iron Dragons in first place. In the final, they finished in first place with a time of 50.00, 1.03 seconds ahead of the second place.
GoPro Footage: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCDQCh_ld9UWfG8xudoxxlDrlpw1se4gp&si=QdFSIu0dg657dNRs
Premier
Premier Mixed – 3rd
In the very first race of the event, 22D’s premier mixed finished first in their 500 m heat with a time of 1:53.00, 0.24 seconds faster than the second place finishers, TNPC. In the major final, they finished third behind NDRC and TNPC with a time of 1:52.57. Later in the day, the premier mixed team raced in the 2000 m, hunting NDRC’s B boat and started ahead of TNPC. They finished in second place behind NDRC with a time of 8:32.13. Day 2 was 200 m. Premier placed first in their heat with a time of 44.32. In the final, premier took the third place with a time of 44.21 behind TNPC and NDRC.
2000 m drone footage: https://youtu.be/1CzMNArcCPE
Premier Open – 3rd
Once against racing in the first race of the day, premier finished fourth in the 500 m heat with a time of 1:54.66. In the final, they edged out Liquid Premier for the third place with a time of 1:52.68. In the 2000 m race, the premier open finished in third with a time of 8:19.43, only seconds behind NDRC and TNPC. In the 200 m heat, premier open finished in third place with a time of 44.27. In the 200 m final, they finished in third place with a time of 43.46, 1.42 seconds behind the first place.
Premier Women – 2nd
Premier women finished third in their heat with a time of 2:02.63. In their final, the premier women beat out NDRC for the second place with a time of 2:00.25, so close to a sub-2. Only 0.75 seconds behind TNPC in first place. In the 2000 m the premier women finished in second with a time of 8:56.60, only 0.66 seconds behind TNPC! In the 200 m heat, they finished in third with a time of 49.12. In the 200 m final, they finished in third place with a time of 48.06, 0.05 seconds behind NDRC.
Senior A
Senior A Mixed – 2nd
Senior A mixed finished third in their 500 m heat with an impressive time of 2:02.07. In their 500 m final, they took the third place with a time of 2:02.12! In the 2000 m, the senior A’s edged out the Barracudas for the second place, finishing with a time of 9:06.68, 12.6 seconds behind CSDC. On day two of racing, the Senior B’s finished third in the 200 m heat with a time of 48.94. On their final, they once again edged out CSDC’s second boat for the second place with a time of 48.95.
2000 m drone footage: https://youtu.be/g1a-QcfqFos
Senior A Open (Small) – 2nd
In the 500 m heat, they finished second with a time of 2:23.51. In the final, they solidified their second place with a time of 2:15.05, 2.5 seconds behind CSDC. In the 2000 m, they finished second with a time of 10:16.35. In the 200 m heat, they finished second with a time of 51.21, 0.42 seconds behind CSDC. In the final, they finished in second with a time of 51.68, 0.02 seconds behind CSDC, an extremely close race!
Senior A Women – 3rd
They finished in third with a time of 2:16.25. In the final, they finished in third with a time of 2:14.59, 1.58 seconds away from the second place. In the 2000 m, they finished in third with a time of 9:54.83. In their 200 m heat, they finished in second with a time of 51.45. In the final, they finished third with a time of 52.10.
Senior B
Senior B Mixed – 2nd
Our senior B mixed finished in second in their 500 m heat with a time of 2:03.07. They then finished third in the final behind two CSDC mixed boats with a time of 2:04.34. The senior B’s edged out CSDC’s second mixed boat in the 2000 m, finishing in second with a time of 9:14.55. On the second day of racing, senior B placed second with a time of 49.52 on their 200 m race. In the final, they finished second with a time of 48.66 behind CSDC.
2000 m drone footage: https://youtu.be/pthgf_gHbD4
Senior B Open (Small) – 2nd
The senior B open finished second in their 500 m heat with a time of 2:16.52. In their final, they solidified their second place with a time of 2:14.62. In the 2000 m, they finished third with a time of 10:16.41. In the 200 m heat, they finished in second with a time of 53.07. In the 200 m final, they finished in second with a time of 51.42.
Senior C
Senior C Mixed (Small) – 1st
The Super C’s mixed boat’s 500 m heat established their dominance in their category, finishing in 1st place with a time of 2:17.34, leading CSDC by 1.3 seconds. In the 500 m final, the Super C’s took home the first place with a time of 2:18.62, leading CSDC by 1.2 seconds. In the 2000 m, the super C’s finished second with a time of 10:58.62, 6.3 seconds behind CSDC. On day two, the Supers C’s finished second in their 200 m heat with a time of 55.86 behind CSDC. The Super C’s persevered and clinched the top spot with a time of 55.77, 0.6 seconds ahead of the competition.
2000 m drone footage: https://youtu.be/-PH_MH83MyI
Senior C Women (Small) – 1st
In their 500 m heat, they finished in first place with a time of 2:48.95. In the final, they finished in first with a time of 2:39.22 with a 30 second lead! In the 2000 m race, they finished once again in first with a time of 11:33.96 with a lead of more than 2.5 minutes. In the 200 m heat, they finished first with a time of 1:00.79. In the final, they finished with a time of 1:01.4.
Find the live streams for all races here: https://www.youtube.com/@bateaudragoncanada/streams
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