|
 John  PDBA Premier Open Gold
By John Herrera The Bay Area Dragons traveled to Vancouver Lake, Washington for a showdown against the defending PDBA champions San Diego. At stake was a birth in the Dragon Boat Club Crew World Championships to be held in Penang, Malaysia in 2008. The result was a thrilling come from behind victory by BAD that earned us the coveted premier open entry to represent the West Coast of the United States in the Club Crew World Championships.
"We're going to Penang!" said a very excited Alvin Wang after BAD clinched the entry by winning a clear cut victory in the final premier open race of the weekend. The victory did not come easy since BAD's friendly rivals, San Diego, gave us everything we could handle throughout the weekend; but in the end, it was BAD, whose patience, endurance, and most of all perseverance helped pave the way for arguably the biggest win in BAD's history given the circumstances and high drama that occurred in the week leading up to the Club Crew World Championship Qualifier. The premier open team's hopes of winning the entry appeared crushed after the first race of Saturday when a second place finish left BAD searching for answers. With San Diego's decisive victory in the first race, BAD would have to run the table and win the last three races in a row in order to earn the entry to Penang. With all hope seemingly lost, a world class opponent who would show no mercy, and the nightmare of the weekend before still fresh in the minds of all BAD members, the dream team of Steve Yan, Emmie Yang, Andy Wong, and Alvin Wang, devised a plan that would help BAD accomplish the Herculean task of defeating San Diego three times in a row. In order to adapt to the different boats and conditions, the dream team would change the starting and finishing strategy. The new strategy included a few more strokes added to the start to ensure that BAD could ramp up to victory speed, and a lot more strokes added to the finish to ensure that once in the lead, BAD would not surrender it. The strategy worked to perfection. In the second race, BAD, behind the efforts Jai Dhar, Kurt Berger, Nolan Louie, Marco Gabbiani, and Justin Lien shot out of the start line faster than the silver bullet express - "People all over the world: join hands." The lead BAD had following the start was so gargantuan that it brought the BAD support squad of local friends and Armaan's dad to their feet as they roared their approval from the shoreline. The experienced crew of San Diego wasn't fazed by BAD's quick start as they used their precise timing to get back in the race. With BAD's lead dwindling, Steersperson Sidney Tao called an early finish that would result in BAD holding off their So Cal foes to take the second race of the day. The points were now even, but because of the time differential in the first race, BAD would have to win both races on Sunday to take home the gold and the entry to Penang.  BAD Wins PDBA No Guts No Glory 2000 meter race With all of BAD's hopes and dreams riding on this one last race, with two years of hard work after coming so tantalizingly close to securing an entry to the 2006 World championships, and with the entire world of Dragon Boat Racing having backed us into a corner because of the shenanigans that occurred the week before, the dream team would roll out one more strategy to help give BAD that extra edge we would need in the winner take all final. The dream team called on their two aces which included Armaan Vachani and Tim Lee. Vachani would be called upon to drum the final and Lee would be called upon to perform the critical steering duties and steer the premier open team to victory. With George Thorogood's hit song BAD To The Bone playing in the background, the always dangerous tag team tandem of Vachani and Lee boarded the boat and led BAD to the start line in what was soon to become a dramatic victory in dragon boat racing. The premier teams of San Diego, BAD, and Wasabi all lined up at the start line. The starter, with his always ready horn held out for everyone to see, called the start. BAD shot out once again to a terrific start. With half a boat length of lead, BAD would not be denied. The finish call came with still most of the race left to be paddled, but no one cared, nor would anyone be denied as BAD glided across the finish line in first place, well ahead of our rivals. The announcements of the times and the gold medals would make it official: BAD is going to the World Championships! -JH Photos by Donna Major, Wasabi Team Soar
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form