Dragon Boat Festival bronze spurs female participation

JAMAICA’s bronze medal won in the 200-metre Major Mixed Final at the fourth Bahamas Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, August 30-31, has sparked a female run on the sport, which debuted locally at Port Royal in late May.

Denise Romero-Williams, who captained Jamaica’s mixed team, yesterday told The Gleaner that an all-female team has started training for next year’s event, May 2-3, in Nassau, joining a mixed and all-male open team.

“Quite a few women have come forward since news broke of our 200-metre Major Mixed Final bronze medal, a team which included four women, myself and the Russells, Chue-Ping Wong, Cassandra, and Danielle,” said Romero-Williams, a 45-year-old black belt, who started as team manager before joining training for the Bahamas Festival in June.

Jamaicans first became aware of dragon-boat racing on the weekend of May 31-June 1, the first staging of the Jamaica Dragon Boat Festival. The fourth Bahamas Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, held at Goodman’s Bay, was Jamaica’s first international meet at which the mixed team faced six rivals.

After clocking a first-round heat of 1:04.79, placing third behind King Tide, representing the Royal Bahamas Police Force, and Sandragons, Jamaica returned to win their second heat in 1:11.33, beating open-team Tropic Sea Breezes (1:14.72).

Explaining the strategy, Romero-Williams said a reshuffle of oar assignments won the day for Jamaica in the second round.

“We realised we needed to reshuffle to maximise the efficiency of each person. The dynamics of dragon-boat racing is that you cannot put a certain weight category in some seats, despite strength. You have to be very careful how to allocate team members. We needed to improve on how we assigned people to maximise the second heat,” she pointed out.

Jamaica’s aggregate time not only qualified them for the 200-metre Mixed Major Final, but also the Minor Final Open 200 - Division A, from which they were pulled by team captain Jason McKay, saving manpower for the Major Final Open 200 - Division A, for which the all-male team had qualified with the fastest second-round time of all teams (1:03.95).

“We should have no such problems with three teams and reserves next year,” said Romero-Williams, adding that Jamaica have three gold medals on their radar with the first-year jitters out of the way.

“When we were travelling, I had butterflies. It was a huge responsibility to know you’re representing your country in an unfamiliar event, wondering what the reception would have been if we had failed. Jamaica is a sports-loving country and those thoughts were a burden on my shoulders,” Romero-Williams pointed out.

“However, with the commitment and camaraderie within the team, we pulled it off. I was pleasantly surprised to have won a bronze at an event with significant competition. We pulled it off. Jamaica medalled. I couldn’t have been happier with the result, which has now attracted other women to the sport.

“We have already identified all-women, open and mixed-team personnel, who have already started training. Our next consideration is sponsorship,” she added.