Success in Prague: Women Excel,
Men Defend, Youth Amaze
2009 Season Review by Coach Bob McNamara

The tale of the 2009 World Championship season of Team USA and its Philadelphia contingent is rich in glory, amazing individual and team efforts, spiced with a degree of frustration that will fade as time moves on. The short story is that the Premier team won more medals (six) than ever in US history and finished the World Championships with the second highest Premier medal total behind China. Within the Premier category the women turned in by far the best performance ever and the men their second best behind Sydney in 2007. The Seniors competed very well and the Juniors made us all smile with their enthusiasm and amazing paddling.

Once again the Philadelphia Dragon Boat Association formed the core of team USA and was responsible for organizing all the Premier teams, the Junior teams, the Senior Open and Mixed and the Grand Masters Mixed. We entered the season as the defending Nations Cup team and were traveling to the epicenter of sprint paddling to throw it down with the best in the World. At all levels the team did its self proud with every single boat organized by the PDBA coming away with a world championship medal. All will have great memories that ran from the first cold AM practice to the Philly style celebration party in Prague.

The run up to Prague was done in our typical fashion with months of early AM team practices, the challenge of time trials and highly successful warm up racing in Montreal where our Premier Men and Mixed took gold with the Senior-GM mixed finishing fourth in a strong field. This season was notable in that we not only had numerous outside paddlers coming to Philly for time trials but with the coach as a guinea pig there was a running of time trials in Houston, San Diego and Tampa to evaluate candidates for team USA. Each of these outside time trials produced paddlers who would wear the colors in Prague.



In Prague, we opened the regatta with a bang as the men repeated as World Champions in the 2000 meter race successfully holding off a determined Slovakian team that had the top seed. This marks the first time a US Premier team has won back to back gold medals in an event. The women gave notice of good things to come by winning silver in the 2000 and the Senior A boat stayed afloat long enough to claim the bronze. The very turbulent waters of the 2000 were a reflection of the shallow course that would later lead to some frustration but the excellent steering of Billy Heffernan and Ellen Law overcame this obstacle on day 1 of the regatta.



Day 2 brought the 1000 meter races a usual strength area for team USA and both the men and women brought home silver. The silver for the women in the 1000 meant that they had equaled the total number of medals won by USA Premier Women in the history of team USA. This race was also significant in that they beat Team Canada, a team that clearly is the class of the Premier Women’s field in recent years. Team USA in recent years has not come close to Team Canada let alone beat them in a race. Additionally, the women were only 0.2 seconds out of gold behind China. That equaling of the medal total would be a doubling before the regatta’s end with bronzes in both the 200 and 500. It is without a doubt that the US women stepped into the elite group this year. All of the women’s medals were won by three teams, China, Canada and the USA and the traditional powerhouses of Great Britain, Russia and Germany went home empty handed.



The men were the top seed in the 1000 and ran true to form winning their heat and the semifinal but the problems with the course were becoming evident as no one was getting close to breaking 4 minutes in the shallow water. Not only was the course shallow but the lanes were of uneven depth. When Iran beat the Chinese and the Czechs out of lane 1 in the minor final it was clear that the very talented Slovakian team would be dangerous in lane 1 in the Grand Final. As it came to pass the men ran a great race coming from behind to catch and pass the Philippines who had won the other semifinal only to look over to see Slovakia celebrating their gold. Slovakia had lost the 2000 gold in Sydney when they received a time penalty and to their credit they seized the lane 1 opportunity and ran with it much as the USA had done with its first ever gold medal out of lane 6 in Hong Kong in 1997. Of course all of that does nothing to make it any easier for our 2009 crew to swallow. The Premier Men would not medal again but their gold and silver medal performance, outside of the 3 golds in Sydney, was the second best ever by a men’s team in the history of team USA. The fact that half of the starting 20 men were Seniors adds to the significance of this achievement.

The 200 meter races were once again dominated by the Philippines and China who truly are a pleasure to watch in these events but our women did squeak a bronze out of lane 1 in an event we really do not train for. The Senior mixed also managed a bronze in the 200 meter races. On day 3, the Premier and Senior mixed 500 racing brought similar frustrations to team USA as with the Premier men’s 1000. The winners of both events came out of lane 1 and were teams we had beaten earlier in the heats. On the final day of the regatta the officials took action and flipped the seeding to have the top seeds in lane 1 and 6. The women were able to get another bronze while the men struggled out of a center lane in the final, a lane that we wound up in because of the awesome performance of the eventual gold medal winner China in our heat.

The Senior A boat battled hard throughout the regatta in a tough field and showed well particularly when looking at the fact that 13 of them were actually Grand Masters (Premier team priority precluded use of the 10 Premier Open seniors). In addition to the bronze in the 2000 we took fourth in the 500 and had one heck of a heat against eventual gold medal winner Team Canada in the 1000 where the margin of separation was only 0.27 seconds. The Senior Mixed, as mentioned, did win a bronze in the 200 while the GM mixed did very well winning two silvers behind the always impressive Canadian GMs. The GM mixed was nearly an equal split with the West Coast as their steersman, the top men from the GM open and a number of their women combined with the Philly based paddlers.





The other adult based teams competing in Prague for team USA did quite well in their own right with both the Senior and GM women each winning a silver and two bronze medals and the GM open coming close to the medal stand. Philly paddlers assisted in each of those boats. The tale of the juniors deserves and will get a separate story but suffice it to say that the kids were amazing. They won the Junior B (under 16) cup and secured the gold medal in the Junior B mixed by winning the 500 meter distance in an amazing race against Canada. To see them on the stand smiling ear to ear getting their medals and singing the anthem was the best moment of the regatta for me.

Repeating the tradition started in Sydney we located a nearby establishment for the post race party and once again the rookie skit organized by Colleen McNamara and Amy Platt was the highlight of the evening. Most of team USA was at the party and we welcomed a few friends from Canada as the evening wore on. We won’t say much more other than the team parties as hard as it races. Fortunately no one missed a flight the next day although many wish they had another day in Prague to recover before traveling home.

While losing a number of Sydney medalists to the economy, life and other issues we were fortunate to have many veteran paddlers who committed to Prague. Returning from Sydney in the Premier open were drummer Katie Godfrey, steersman Bill Heffernan, captains and stroke pair Ross Flemer and Kevin McFadden, Kevin McNamara (who had his all Premier gold collection thrown into disarray with a silver), Daryl Hogge, Radley Spring, Erik Werner, Tes Myrie, Andy McMarlin, Andy Soles, Dan Hammer, Jody Marcon, Ed Lau, Chris Swan, Danny Ching and Steve Sinkus. “Rookies” (new to the team) contributing to the men’s boat who received their first World Championship Gold included Jeff “the Quiet Man” (except when on the Montreal bus) Firkin, Brent Campbell whose Dad paddled GM open, Thomas Shahinian, Richard Graham, Tim “the other Quiet Man” (except when Braveheart is on or the stroke rate is too low) Godfrey, Dan “Eagle Scout” (to no one’s surprise) Harris and Paul Clermont. Stein Jorgensen who won Premier Gold with us in 2004 also made another appearance in the boat adding a veteran presence.

The Premier women, for the first time fully funded by the organization, had a revamped line up from Sydney following the philosophy of the men’s team where the best from Philly were augmented by top outside talent. Led by coach and captain Margaret Gordon returning veterans included steerswoman Ellen Law, stroke pair Kristie Nichols and Pam Kirschner, ably backed up by Colleen McNamara (whose Dad embarrassed her 6 or 7 times in Prague), Jen Moore, Stacey Bowen, Evelyn Orenbuch, Carol Rabuck, Sharine Wittkopp, Emily Chi and Katie Hagler. Local first time Premier paddlers Cat “Facebook” Dailey, Angela “the Quiet Woman” Acuna, Stephanie Mullins, and Regina Buchofer were complemented by the very strong new outside talent of Maggie Hogan, Colleen Moore, Maia and Ariel Farrar-Wellman, Celeste Wise, Nat DeGenna, and Kaitlyn McElroy. Rookie of the year, however, goes to local drummer Amy Platt who stepped in mid-season to do an awesome job leading the team through super intense racing.

The Senior men were stroked by Jim Morris and Chris Marquart with Angela Juul drumming and Simon Shum steering. Other members of this boat of youngsters included Ed “Have a Great Day” Moy, Kelly “Tango without Cash” Ray, Joe “Guinness” Gibbons, Lance Syferd, Marc Applewhite (who was reluctant to say he paddled for a team called Puff), Paul Wasylyszyn (which no one tried to say), Bill “No Khakis” Mangum, Cliff Hamilton Sr. (without the elbow brace), Chip Coward, Al Spring, Tom Ostrowski (who wanted us to pop it in the shallows), Pete “IDBR” Kiliani, Ray “I’ll paddle anywhere” Shipman, Les “Laid Back” Hopper, John Krajewski, Nick Chekmizoff, Al “Fat Man” Nichols, Phil “TECO” Barringer and yours truly. Angela and a number of these young lads combined with Pete McNamara, Anne Schuind, Wendy “Broken Wrist” Davy, Lynda “the Rock” Rock, Dana Davies and Pam Korotky to win two silvers in the GM mixed with a big assist from the West Coast contingent. These ladies also assisted in the Senior and GM women’s boats. Also going to Prague from the PDBA was Maureen Goldman who paddled both Senior Mixed and Senior women, Jan Buhler and Eleanor Smergel with the GM women while Ken Wong, Gordon Smith and Pete McNamara paddled in the West Coast based GM open. Lynne Franks-Meinert from Pittsburgh (Senior women) and Charlotte Hudgins from Houston (Senior mixed and women) both came through Philly time trials to win seats for Prague.

Coming from the West Coast to help out the PDBA based mixed boats in Prague were Holly Ansari in the Senior Mixed, with Mike Gaughan, Marshall Parks, John McKay, Eric Starnes, Jim Vitale, Cheance Adair, Wendy DeWitt, Lisa Stangl, Debra Sandridge and Raylene Movius in the GM mixed. The combination boats worked quite well and set the stage for future collaboration on Team USA.

Within any team there are individual stories of sacrifice and achievement that go beyond others. We certainly had many special stories including those who rose from sub in Sydney to main player in Prague like Tes Myrie and Colleen McNamara. We had those who traveled long distances to make practice in Philly and others who spent countless hours paddling on their own to qualify for the team. Katie had morning sickness; Erik had his usual litany of medical complaints. Ross’ elbow grew to new dimensions in Prague. Some overcame personal and family hard times to rise to the challenge of making the boat. It was only after it was over did we learn that Lynda Rock had endured chemotherapy while training and testing for Prague. At the end of a season we sit back and realize that the folks we paddled with were not only great on the water but also off it.

Finally, the organizational efforts required mustering a huge contingent of paddlers to Prague and to fund the entire Premier team was enormous and inspiring. From the hard labor of the first day of getting boats on the water to the massive effort put out regarding the team sponsored and run Independence Dragon Boat Regatta to the final task of organizing photos for racing IDs in Prague the board and team did a tremendous job. The whole team contributed but many went above and beyond this year. For example, Pete Kiliani and Rob Sanchez were tireless in their efforts regarding the IDBR. Ken Wong did his usual outstanding job promoting the team and drawing in sponsors for the various events. Jim Morris served beyond the call in double duty as the team President and head IT guy who had to organize the data for Prague. Tes Myrie once again somehow kept the books in order as Treasurer in a year with a huge number of transactions. Barb Michaels from the USDBF was a tremendous help to the team and coaches. (We did reward her though by letting her see two of her nieces get medals.) I could go one but you get the point, it was a team effort. Those who could not go to Prague are owed tremendous thanks not just for things like helping out at the IDBR but also for pushing your team mates to be faster than you in order to earn the seat. Think Tampa in 2011, no jet lag, no shallows, just plenty of opportunity for the team willing to work for it. See you on the water.