Dragon boat competitor Sian Cornwell recently returned from the 16th World Dragon Boat Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, hosted by the International Dragon Boat Federation. The event was held from August 7 to 13.
The 22-year-old qathet region paddler and the Canadian national para dragon boat team did extremely well over six days of competing on the water.
This was the first time Canada sent a para team to the world championships, and they returned with gold, silver and bronze medals.
“There are four distances to compete in and each distance gets a medal,” said Cornwell.
In both the 1,000-metre and 2,000-metre race, “we [Canada] came in first and took the gold medal,” she added.
The team also collected a third-place bronze medal in the 500-metre race and a second-place, silver medal, in the 200-metre race.
“The criteria for para teams are that half of the boats are para or [athletes with various physical disabilities] and half are supporter paddlers,” said Cornwell. “I was a support paddler [those without physical disabilities].”
Both para and non-para teams race the same distances.
The dragon boat races took place in a freshwater reservoir about two hours from the capital of Bangkok.
“It was a great debut for Canada's first para dragon boat team,” exclaimed Cornwell. “Canada overall won the most medals and was awarded the nations cup.”
Canada was awarded 52 medals in total at the World Dragon Boat Championships.
Cornwell is currently a coach for her team Zunga Warriors, which will continue to practice on Powell Lake in Powell River until mid-September.
"I'm still thinking about what is next for me in racing; for the next while I'll be doing more local races," said Cornwell.
"I'm planning on trying out for Team Canada again for the 2025 world championships in Germany, but that process doesn't start until next summer so it will be nice to have a bit of time off."
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