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Take notice, Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival newbies. Team EU aims to be the fleetest of your fleet.
“At first, our objective was not to tip,” confides Petra Auster, captain of the first-time entry sponsored by the European Union delegation to Canada.
But now, after three practices in which the Euros trimmed a substantial 20 seconds from their time over the 500-metre course: “Our objective is to win against everyone in the novice class.”
And maybe, adds the good-natured Auster, the delegation’s head of administration, triumph as well over some of the old salts at this weekend’s competitions on the Rideau River at Mooney’s Bay.
Before advancing with such diplomatic impunity, though, Team EU will need to out-paddle an entry drawn from Ottawa’s Scandinavian embassies.
Yes. Vikings.
“Their name is Nord-zilla,” says Auster. “That’s a bit scary.”
But her 22-member squad of delegation staffers and others enlisted from Ottawa’s EU community has some fierceness of its own. There are downhill ski racers, for instance, and the captain herself is an accomplished single-scull rower. While the noise and freehand paddling of a dragon boat race will be much different than the fixed oars and soothing solitude of an early-morning scull, both are about going fast over water.
Auster’s experience is why she’ll be up front, setting the pace with the team’s drummer.
“I have a big responsibility.”
Team EU is among 40 new entries in the 183-team field at the festival, which over two decades has become the largest of its kind in North America in both participant numbers and the size of the crowd drawn to the races and related free concerts and other events. This year’s festival opens Thursday night with indie pop band Stars. Boogie-rockers The Sheepdogs headline on Friday and the art-rock Arkells on Saturday.
Paddlers compete Saturday and Sunday in various “Challenge Cup” categories and for overall honours. The non-profit festival has raised $3 million for charity since 1998, and organizers say this year’s goal is $450,000. Teams pay entry fees ranging from $500 to $1,400, and about one-fifth of participants also collect pledges for charity.
For Team EU, getting involved is a way to make a contribution and show some “public diplomacy,” says Auster. The EU delegation, though a fully fledged diplomatic mission established in 1976, is less known in Ottawa than some individual missions.
That could change, of course, with a victory over the horn-hatted Vikings, but Auster said win or lose, her team will return — though probably with a snappier name to match entrants like Tunney’s Torpedo (civil servants), We’re Listing (real estate agents) and StrokeIt! (a’hem).
How about the Floating Euros?
“That’s good!” she says.
rbostelaar@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/robt_bostelaar
To advance, however, the EU team that draws most of its roster from delegation staff, augmented with some Europeans from outside the diplomatic community and a few paddlers from individual embassies, will need to beat a team drawn exclusively from Scandinavian missions.
But the EU entry has some fierce competitors of its own.
rbostelaar@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/robt_bostelaar
查看原文...
“At first, our objective was not to tip,” confides Petra Auster, captain of the first-time entry sponsored by the European Union delegation to Canada.
But now, after three practices in which the Euros trimmed a substantial 20 seconds from their time over the 500-metre course: “Our objective is to win against everyone in the novice class.”
And maybe, adds the good-natured Auster, the delegation’s head of administration, triumph as well over some of the old salts at this weekend’s competitions on the Rideau River at Mooney’s Bay.
Before advancing with such diplomatic impunity, though, Team EU will need to out-paddle an entry drawn from Ottawa’s Scandinavian embassies.
Yes. Vikings.
“Their name is Nord-zilla,” says Auster. “That’s a bit scary.”
But her 22-member squad of delegation staffers and others enlisted from Ottawa’s EU community has some fierceness of its own. There are downhill ski racers, for instance, and the captain herself is an accomplished single-scull rower. While the noise and freehand paddling of a dragon boat race will be much different than the fixed oars and soothing solitude of an early-morning scull, both are about going fast over water.
Auster’s experience is why she’ll be up front, setting the pace with the team’s drummer.
“I have a big responsibility.”
Team EU is among 40 new entries in the 183-team field at the festival, which over two decades has become the largest of its kind in North America in both participant numbers and the size of the crowd drawn to the races and related free concerts and other events. This year’s festival opens Thursday night with indie pop band Stars. Boogie-rockers The Sheepdogs headline on Friday and the art-rock Arkells on Saturday.
Paddlers compete Saturday and Sunday in various “Challenge Cup” categories and for overall honours. The non-profit festival has raised $3 million for charity since 1998, and organizers say this year’s goal is $450,000. Teams pay entry fees ranging from $500 to $1,400, and about one-fifth of participants also collect pledges for charity.
For Team EU, getting involved is a way to make a contribution and show some “public diplomacy,” says Auster. The EU delegation, though a fully fledged diplomatic mission established in 1976, is less known in Ottawa than some individual missions.
That could change, of course, with a victory over the horn-hatted Vikings, but Auster said win or lose, her team will return — though probably with a snappier name to match entrants like Tunney’s Torpedo (civil servants), We’re Listing (real estate agents) and StrokeIt! (a’hem).
How about the Floating Euros?
“That’s good!” she says.
rbostelaar@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/robt_bostelaar
To advance, however, the EU team that draws most of its roster from delegation staff, augmented with some Europeans from outside the diplomatic community and a few paddlers from individual embassies, will need to beat a team drawn exclusively from Scandinavian missions.
But the EU entry has some fierce competitors of its own.
rbostelaar@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/robt_bostelaar
查看原文...
