THE initial Cross Border Championships were held recently at Gateway Lakes in Wodonga and the Nowra Waterdragons participated with unbelievable success.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The team came home with three first places and a second-place out of five events.
This was the first year the event has been held, which was in place of the national championships.
This year saw 25 clubs from all over Australia vying for the Southern Cross Trophy in their age category.
Nowra came to the event with 24 determined paddlers entered into the five events, compared to some clubs with up to 40 paddlers being entered.
Nowra was entered into the 100-metre dash, the 200-metre men's and women's 10s, 500-metre and 1000-metre pursuit.
This was a new format for racing and proved to be very successful and enjoyable to all participants and spectators.
Day one saw the 100-metre dash and 200-metre men's and women's 10s boats.
The 10s were run in normal 20 paddler boats with only 10 paddlers, a drummer and a steerer.
In the 100-metre dash, Nowra was fighting all the way against the stronger Victorian sides in the races and came in second in the heats before winning the final - beating the much-favoured Dragonmasters from Melbourne.
After the mixed full-boat races came the small boat (10s) 200-metre races.
Nowra made the finals in both the men's and women's with the men coming in first and the women fifth in a very competitive final.
Day two again saw the new format 1km pursuit races hit the water, with Nowra again racing the highly-trained Melbourne teams.
The format was to have the two teams together racing other sides similar to the Olympic cycling event, with each squad chasing the other.
The Nowra team came home with a second-place by 0.22, being pipped by Dragonmasters.
Day three saw the mixed boat races (20s) in the 500-metre events.
Nowra was expected to do quite well in this event as they had been competitive all weekend.
The heats saw them win by more than three seconds and 0.5 seconds to their favoured components.
This put them into the grand final against their rivals all weekend, the Dragonmasters.
The end result was the Nowra Waterdragons won by two seconds.
The thought of winning was originally beyond the expectations of the team.
They had trained hard over the past two months and deserved their rewards.
Looking ahead, the season is still moving along with the state championships in June due to being postponed by floods.
Before this, the club has a sports regatta to raise money for the victims of the fires and COVID-19 on May 15 and 16.
They are always looking for more members and interested participants in what is a great way to stay or get fit and be more sociable as well as being a member of a strong club.
Training is Monday and Wednesday from 5pm and Saturday at 8am.
If you are interested, please come along, visit their Facebook page or call the club on 0410 040 507.
We depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support.
