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After 3 full months of grueling and arduous training, the Republic Polytechnic Dragons were prepared to face our regular opponents in MR500 – the first race to start off 2007. As the saying goes “No Pain No Gain”, the RP Dragons brought home 2 silver medals from Tertiary/ National Schools Men and Women events. RP also achieved a 3rd placing in the Mixed category Plate Finals.
In the Tertiary/National Schools Women category, an atypical rule was implemented to have only 5 pairs of paddlers to propel a boat of 22-crew capacity. This
was indeed a tough race for the teams. RP Dragons raced with much determination and high morale. Despite being one of the younger teams in the Dragon boat arena, we proved to be a threat to other opponents by overtaking NTU with a remarkable difference of 5 seconds.
In the Tertiary/ Nationals Schools Men category, the RP men fought with vigor despite losing out to NUS by split seconds. The men in every boat from every institute paddled as hard as they possibly could. RP managed to come up all the way to the 450 m marking before NUS’s last burst of fury saw them charging up and overtaking RP in the last 50 m. It was a teeth-gritting race indeed, with RP finishing off in 2nd place.
On the second day of the competition, we had difficulty advancing towards the ultimate goal in the open events due to
the exhaustion of our paddlers and a lack of substitute paddlers.
Friendship was displayed between the Dragon Boat Interest Group
(IG) and Canoe IG as they cheered each other on and the RP spirit was felt throughout Lower Seletar Reservoir race course. The Dragon Boat team would like to thank the school for the strong support provided and
our coach for his continuous belief
in the team.
The next big race for RP Dragons will be the much anticipated Penang International Dragon Boat Festival 2007 in June, where we will face off the very best dragon boat teams from the Southeast Asia region. The team will train even harder for this.
RP Dragons GO!
* For RP Staff - Click here to view the rest of the photos from this event
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