By Joyce Yan Yue Shum
Organized by Toronto Chinese Business
Association in collaboration with GWN Dragon Boat, the 30th Toronto
International Dragon Boat Race Festival was successfully held last weekend in
Centre Island, Toronto. This event welcomed over 100 teams from across Canada,
the U.S., Europe and Asia with over 5,000 athletes participating in the race. This
year, Vision Youth has once again formed a Dragon Boat team and we have taken
part in this international event for two consecutive years.
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| Vision Youth Dragon Boat team members showing off their medals |
All competitions were held in groups. 6
teams with similar qualifying time were grouped into one division and they
competed with one another on the final day. While the spectators cheered for
their favorite team and the atmosphere was quite relaxing, the race was
intense. Successfully qualified for the final, our team won the silver medal in
58.91 in mixed 200m final, which greatly boosted our morale and team spirit.
Shortly after this race, we took part in a more challenging race, mixed 500m
final, and finished with a bronze medal in a new team record time of 2:30:58.
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| VY Dragon Boat members paddling hard |
The excellent results our team achieved are
credited to all our team members and those who have been assisting us along the
way. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our coach, Matthew Ma,
for guiding our team members and giving them useful advice during training that
helped them improve. Moreover, we would like to thank our team captain, Linda
Liu, and assistant captain Eric Ho for helping us to form our team and leading
our members in the competition. Last but not least, our team members were
outstanding during competition. They have great team spirit and maintain high
morale. We sincerely appreciate their hard work and it is their diligence and
passion that leads to the brilliant performance of our Dragon Boat team.
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| Team members are overjoyed with the second medal of the day |
The drummer of the team, Albert Li, was
very satisfied with their performance. He found the result quite surprising and
it surpassed his expectations as he recalled that the team only had 6 trainings
before the competition. He hoped that more people would be encouraged to
participate in dragon boat activities and join Vision Youth’s team by the great
results they have accomplished this year.
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| Team Members high five each other after the race |
Other than participating in the dragon boat
race, we have set up a promotional booth to introduce our leadership program to
the public as well as showing them photos and thoughts of our past participants.
Strong team spirit is always an indispensable part of a dragon boat race. Good
cooperation and high morale of the team is the key to our victory. Through
Vision Youth Leadership Program, we hope to strengthen the interpersonal and teamwork
skills of our participants as well as letting them understand the importance of
team spirit and cooperation in a collaborative task.
Vision Youth Dragon Boat team is now
recruiting new members. If you have any enquiries or you are interested in
joining us, please email to info@visionyouth.ca.
Vision Youth Leadership Program is recruiting new participants for
2018-2019 Bronze Program. To enquire or sign up please go to our website www.visionyouth.ca
or email to info@visionyouth.ca or call us at (416) 800-4040.
