The 2005 Berlin World Dragon Boat championships demonstrated the worst dragon boat run event EVER! Although the racing was at the IDBF world championship calibre, the Germans failed to uphold their responsibility as hosts. Just don't know where to start, but let's start with the chinzy business card sized id with a beautiful nylon string lanyard and NO welcome package, NO program, a poor poor poor opening ceremony topped by a poor closing one. 30EURO lunches were a 10 minute walk off race grounds. The promotional information lied about the distances from hotel to race site and lied about lunches being boxed. The racing was great, the experience made horrible by the German support. IDBF failed on all counts to correct numerous concerns and complaints by all the national coordinators. I am proud to be a participant of these worlds, but ashamed for the sport because of what I saw was done to rip off the participants for the sake of lining the pockets of a Agency Sportswork! I certainly hope for the good of the sport that Australia saves these World Championships - because Berlin has NOTHING to be proud of!

Having been in Rome for WCC in 2002 it is nice to see that any type of championships in Europe means that the athletes and support staff are ripped off. In Rome, the accommodations seemed to be in Naples (not Rome), the food provided was not that good, the transportation was horrible, the course was sub standard, the wrapup party was a joke. So it seems Germany took a page from the Italians. Hopefully IDBF does not give any championships to Europe until they get their act together.

The IDBF does not care - they are in on it

I wasn't there so don't know how bad it was. I do know that I expected Germans to be able to post results on a website, but I guess I was expecting too much because apparently it eluded them.

I will say this....if you feel so strongly about it why not put your name to your post? Otherwise it's just another anonymous cry and complain post which is all there seems to be on this forum.

I don't know how well funded, staffed or managed the IDBF is but if their mandate is to promote dragon boating throughout the world, I would have thought they would have put more effort into letting people outside of Berlin know what the heck was going on.

Were it not for the magnanimous efforts of Mike K (I can't thank you enough), we'd still be scratching our heads wondering what happened. The way he managed the real-time updates was cool but it felt so "underground" that you'd think dragon boating was some sort of illicit addiction rather than a legitimate sport.

Were I the IDBF, I would have made every effort to provide timely updates, pictures and results on my website so that fans and well wishers could cheer on their national teams.

Are Canadians the only people so obsessed with this sport? Am I preaching to the choir?

Sorry but ICF all the way baby if you want this sport to go anywhere.

I'm sure toronto next year, australia in 2007, and china in 2008 will all be memorable experiences.

Shame on the germans if the above is the case.

Mike haslam, its time to get your act together.

I agree that Berlin did an awful job hosting this event. Of the plus side, the course and organization of the races were professionally done, which thank god, are the most important.

Unfortunately, they could have done a much better job in the overall package. I can't remember how many exorbiant fees we have to pay for transportation, food, closing ceremony party, etc, and yes I felt totally ripped-off. Besides the actualy racing, it is a totally no-frills event and you really wonder where all the money goes. I agreed IDBF should do something about it.

I wouldn't hold your breath for the CCWC in Toronto to be that well run. Check out the website at http://www.2006ccwc.com. They couldn't even put together a legible open letter. It's embarrassing.

Sharifa must have had her marketing office working all night on this...
"Toronto is also a great tourist destination and we expect an attendance of 100,000 people coming to see this exciting Championship in our city."

Back to the Island and this event bringing 100,000.

So the complaining continues....

As I said I wasn't there so I can't comment on whether it was well run or not. The posting of results was certainly inadequate. To those who have complaining about 2006 already I challenge you to find a way to get involved and make a difference in a positive fashion. It's pretty easy to hide behind an anonymous tag and post negative comments and complaints on a forum. It's another thing to stand up and be counted and try to make a difference. To all of you who know nothing other than complaining (I don't even know if you ever take time off from complaining to paddle) why don't you find out how to get involved and help make a difference? It'd be a hell of a lot more satisfying (trust me) and a whole lot more useful.

OK, how do we get involved?

Sounds fun!

Is there an easy way to volunteer to help out with next year's championship?

If so, please post it.

This forum would be a great place to solicit help.

berlin did not want help. they just wanted money. any more of these and i will get into the business of running world championships to rip off the paddlers! it is true that the racing was excellent. but the hosting was made to be painful. participants and supporters paid 30euro for 4 days of lunches, only to find they had to walk 1/2 mile to get it! plus there was no security to speak of, as paddles and clothing was stolen from all teams.

1/2 a mile? 800 meters? That's not really far. Maybe 10 minute walk?
For world calibre athletes that should be less than a minute of running...

Complain, complain, complain. That's all you do. Did they let you race wearing gloves?

If Toronto and Sydney fail to improve on the putting on their World Championships, then the sport is dead and will be left to the festival organizers of the world to keep it alive. IDBF has failed as a managing trustworthy overseer of the sport - what is left is Mike Haslams little empire getting smaller.

Wow I gues DB paddlers should all enter track and field, breaking the 2minute mile barrier lol!

"If Toronto and Sydney fail to improve on the putting on their World Championships, then the sport is dead...."

I've never seen as many predictions of doom and gloom as on this forum. Honestly, the argument that removing or even just expanding the 2 pp rule number would be the death of the sport was enough. Now this? How many other ways can you jokers come up with for the sport to die?

FYI, it was possible to receive a refund for things you prepaid on if your team decided to tell Jorg you were not going to use those services

For Paddlers Anonymous we got refunds for:

1. Lunches (because curry wurst for 1.50 euro was more then enough)
2. Transportation (because german transportation already is amazing and we wanted to see the rest of berlin)

... that last post was not in the defence of agency sportwerk though...

No beer garten will ever run you a 30 Euro charge for an after party.... Same as 8 Euro lunches.... Transportation shouldn't be that expensive either for 8 euros per person per day!

Absolutely unheard of.

Lol, I know you're trying to say is that 800m is not a long walk, but sub-minute 800? Low-Mid 1:40's is world class.

There are going to need, as someone else noted, a ton of volunteers. Better start recruiting. High School kids could get all 40 hours at once.
Who is the voluntere coordinator? If there ain't one soon, there needs to be.

The event may have been poorly run and quite expensive, but the Caviar was EXCELLENT.

So does anyone know how to get involved here...in Canada to make our product better? Who do we talk to?

I am not sure how much better it could have been with more volunteers.

You can have as many volunteers as you want but if the big guy on top sets up outrageous prices then what are you going to do? If Toronto does the same thing so be it... Thats not something we can control if they want to make a killing.

I mean we deal with this stuff all the time at GWN or Centre Island. It just costs more to get food and the portions are smaller. Movie theatre sized portions and pricing for food...

What I found extremely ironic in Berlin was that it appeared the "street food" they were selling in front of the podium looked more satisifying (and was considerably cheaper) then the lunches away from the regatta site

I agree with the last post. Tho food & drink concession stands have reasonable prices and they look oh so tempting throughout the event. Unfortunately I only have the opportunity to taste them not until we've finished all the races (being good athletes), but by then those big glasses of 3 Euros beer were all gone!!! Only cheapie 2 Euro beers but I'm not complaining about that because it is still way cheaper than the costs of IDBF lunches, closing ceremony, transportation, paddler fees, etc!!

Cheers!!

Yes, the racecourse sucked. Too narrow and shallow. But the pool was awesome.

I didn't stay at that Castle Gandolfo, or whatever, so I never had the experience of the mud or long bus rides.

As for the food at the racecourse, the daily boxed lunches were actually pretty decent if a little light on the meat. That seemed typical of food in Rome though, very little meat, lots of pasta.

Party was overpriced and a bit of a let down.


It would be interesting to hear how the ICF event in Schwerin went. Did they have a party? How were their lunches? What was the cost?

Opening and Closing ceremonies would have been done better by my High School team! No pomp, no color, no parade, no community involvement. We were so out of the way, it seemed just like our own private party. What a rip off!

This world championship had no race program! Do you believe it? No event program! How much cheaper can IDBF be with their showcase event? Sad Sad. And they called the Olympics sham!

Has IDBF posted the official results and times yet? I could only find team standings, no times, no nations cup results on the DDV site.

Whaaa! Whaaaaa! Whaa!
Get a life.

Scroll down the page to get to all of the times and results for Worlds and Club Crew Championships. http://www.drachenboot.de/de/regatta_2005/results_berlin_wm.shtml