Have you seen this year medals from the 2009 World Championships ,they are a complete joke .Absolutely no effort on the part of IDBF to come up w/ something nice ,absolutely pathetic when you consider how hard some of these teams trained and awarded with a $5 medal which says nothing on it basically and its hard to tell the bronze from the gold . By far this year is the worst medal ever handed out in and event . IDBF is a bunch of cheapskates only in it for the money

Well - it was an Eastern block countrie. Money is hard to get - I guess.

Well said by the brats on the junior team!

Grow up and don't throw hissie fits when you don't win.

Sorry guys - I dont think its about the medals... the medals are a token of your race results.
Enjoy the glory while it lasts. Its the memories and friends and people you meet on the way.
You will see this with time... you must be young.
Enjoy the moment...

I know this had been discussed before.

Sure, the experience is great and maybe you will remember it forever, but I agree with the original poster. How much effort, time and money you have spent and the thrill of actually coming into the top three. And then the slap on your face, here is your token of appreciation that you can proudly present to your family and friends. Then your friend will say "Hey, my Division G third place medal looks classier than yours!"

I'm sure some of you say who cares about medals, but others have different opinions.

Everyone has their opinion, here's mine. If you won a medal or are over there in Prague and have seen the medals and don't like it, you have every right to feel disapointed. If you're a pussycat over here, and living through the dreams of others, then you are absolutely hopeless.

Dream on.

This is so typical of the adult dragonboat mentality as they strut around in their "Canada Team" outfits like they are world class athletes. They need the medal to go with their matching gloves and paddle covers.

Someone's bitter about something.

Hey, if I made "Team Canada", I WOULD be a world class athlete. What's YOUR issue? Didn't make the cut?

yeah they were probably jealous of others that did make the cut

WTF is with all this Team Canada bashing. Internal dissing against competing crews leading up to national team trials is ok because sometimes it helps stimulate healthy competition. But once things are established and the team has been named we as a nation or in other words, as the canadian dragonboat community, should support them unconditionally. That's the problem with this country sometimes, we are only patriotic when its convenient (but thats another social science discussion). You know the Americans regardless of any issues are waving their red, white and blue proudly. We should be proud of those boys and girls over there cause they're paddling their asses off. Of course anybody in the dragonboating community would trade places in a minute but obviously we weren't good enough and thats why we weren't asked. Stop the gawd damn hating and support your fellow Canadians. Bombaclot!!!!

The medal is merely a symbolic piece and shouldnt take away from the real essence of the achievement.

Coming first, beating the **** out of your opponent, actually being able to make it there and being choosen over many other fine paddlers in your country, is what really matters.

If you look at the Stanley cup or the Super bowl trophy up close, those really are garbage too. Honestly! I am not kidding! But man, those guys know what a huge accomplishment they made!

Just enjoy what you did and focus on the beauty of your achievement. When you come back and show me your medal and tell me what you had to do to get that. Thats solid gold to me!

The only folks bashing the Canadian team are past era flat water paddlers who may have at some point been part of team Canada. Live in the past much?

For whatever reason, it seems important for them to have us know that if they were on the team that we would have done better and therefor our current athletes suck.

I don't happen to share this opinion and I agree that bashing the current team is simply classless.

Perhaps some of the bashing is from people who don't like how some of the people who made the team were invited to try out. Let's face it, the references to the Tutty-era national teams are partialy because those teams were also invite-only but the invites went to people who were clearly better than the elite dragonboater. This year, many people were surprised when they found out who got invites and who made the team. People who wouldn't have had a sniff back then.

Medals are not everything and in my mind its the memories that really counts. I usually throw my medals in a box and store it somewhere in my basement.

On the other side of the coin, the medals we won at Penang, Malaysia were really really classy compared to most of the rest we won. I have one of them in my office proudly displayed, and I am very grateful to the organizers for that extra touch. At some point it will also make its way to the box to be forgotten, but the people I met and the experience I had will never be forgotten (well, you know - until I start losing it in the old age home)

my 2 cents

Jeff

"Perhaps some of the bashing is from people who don't like how some of the people who made the team were invited to try out. Let's face it, the references to the Tutty-era national teams are partialy because those teams were also invite-only but the invites went to people who were clearly better than the elite dragonboater. This year, many people were surprised when they found out who got invites and who made the team. People who wouldn't have had a sniff back then."

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm looking at my Canadian teammates on the Premier Mixed and Open Teams and I see an ex Junior National Team kayaker, another former carded canoe/kayak athlete who continues to paddle outrigger, a two time Olympian, a number of accomplished outrigger paddlers who have attended the World Sprints, Molokai and more, a Canadian female canoeing legend so what the heck are you talking about? I look down the womens roster and there are ****load of female sprint canoeists who have/will compete in Junior/Senior C1 at the canoe level, some of the world's top outrigger paddlers. The Senior Team you could go on and on about with respect to their past sprint c/k accomplishments.

So what do you mean by "elite dragonboater"? And what does that mean? You do realize that nearly anyone on the Premier and Senior Teams trains and competes in other paddling disciplines but if you actually knew who they were, instead of looking and judging at them you might know better than to make such a classification. We are all paddlers. We paddle. No need to make this bull**** differentiation.

All of these people - who you don't know well enough to judge or assess - have told me the competition has gotten harder since Australia.

Willie its not that the country is not behind our times, but the loser (or few losers) who keep typing **** about our team knows everything but knows jack **** because you are totally out of the loop.

You don't know **** and its about time you stop pretending that you do. Everyone on the team at least knows each other by face so we would never say **** about each other. I would advise you keep hiding in the periphery of the sport and not revealing your identity because otherwise the world would hate you a lot more than it already does.

"All of these people - who you don't know well enough to judge or assess - have told me the competition has gotten harder since Australia."


That's what happens when the Chinese show up.

Before we all assume China "came out" to play, what if this Chinese team is not the best they can put together, much like everyone on this forum complains that Canada could field a better team? The point is, as much as we now know Canada needs to re-evaluate how to improve and compete against the Philippines and China, lets not assume this is all the other countries have to offer. 40 seconds and open water on a 200m race doesn't even register in my brain as being humanly possible.

That china crew was not their best, they are up there, but there are probably another 5-8 crews that are same level. Also it's also a good thing that IDBF ruled out the high kneel stroke, because you would probably see the margins of victory increased by an additional 3-6 secs in the 500m event.

Well since it's illegal and has been as far back as I can remember if not always, I have no idea what point you are trying to make?

It's a good thing they outlawed outboard motors or maybe Canada would have won by 1:40 seconds in the 500.

High kneel illegal only to IDBF. In China, the sport is not governed by IDBF, high kneel is still allowed. Paddling sitting down for them is considered "easy". Don't get your britches up when someone is trying to enlighten you.

From what I recalled, the IDBF (mostly Europeans and North Americans voted against it) right before the races during the 2001 worlds at Philadelphia. If you recall the Philipine crew high kneeled the Open championship race anyway in protest (they won but was dq'd).

They didn't high kneel, they stood up in the last 100m.

I doubt they stood up. How can you even reach the water if you're standing in dragon boat?

August 31 2009, 2:19 PM I doubt your enlightening anyone.

You made a statement concerning how china would be faster if they were allowed to use an illegal technique.

I know they use it in china, but that has nothing to do with what is legal at IDBF events. So my statement is still just as relevant.

Wow, how much further off-topic can this thread go?

But who am I to argue...

"I doubt they stood up. How can you even reach the water if you're standing in dragon boat?"

You bend over. Really, it's that simple. You stand up, face about 3/4 sideways, bend over and shovel water. It's very common in China & Hong Kong (yes I know that's also China) and the Phillipine guys seem to have picked it up as well. (p.s. I think they did this in a Minor final, not a championship final so they did not "win"). It can move a boat very quickly, but IDBF felt that enforcing seated paddling was better for the growth of the sport. Safer, easier, more universal.

Back in the way back, Canada paddled vs. China in Hong Kong and won seated vs. the standing Chinese, so it's not the end-all-be-all. But it IS something to see!

The team starts from a seated position, and then after the start the entire crew looks it sort of levitates as they rise to standing while they are paddling. Very cool.

For those of you in the know and weren't there ,Canada actually beat China in Premier open and mixed a number of times .Suggest you look at the 1000 meter premier open results for 1 .....oh I forgot, in your opinion the 1000 means nothing ....shakes head .

For those of you keybord racers that think they can do better in Tampa bring it on out and prove you can do better .Time trials for the crew should be sometime over the next year or do you have an excuse again. All you have done for the last 2 worlds is sit behind your keyboard and talk about years ago .Years ago there were far fewer teams competeing and those that did were no where near as good as show up at the worlds now .You never even had the Phillipines or teams of that level years ago and you live on the Shun De and Indonesia bull****

Idiot !

I forgot ....you're probably the same loser that predicted that the russian powerhouse would dominate .....you ended up wrong again.We beat them nearly every time we went up against them

...who invited ANGER MAN?

ANGER MAN CRUSH!

ANGER SWEAR LOTS! (makes point better)

You are all IDIOTS!!!

Bow to the will of ANGERMAN you stupid ****'s! GRRRRRR...

Would you rather pay an extra 2-3 bucks on your regatta fee for a shiny medal or cut costs so more people can play?

Pay extra

"Pay extra"

I second that!! This is the World Championships. The quality of the medals should reflect that.