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After a long period of hard training the day of the most ambitious goal of our Dragon Boat team has come: 5th/8th September 2002 - the 3rd Crew Clubs World Championships. We’ll play on home water, as the races are in Rome at "Laghetto dell’EUR", where we usually train.
We feel a great responsibility: we are the only Roman team and we would like to represent our town at our best. We’ll take part in the CCWC for the Senior Mixed class (over 40) in the 250 and 500 metres races.
Our Dragon Boat club is one of the latest-born in Italy ( it was born three years ago), we haven’t got our own boat but our team is tough and our target is that of making a good impression even if we’ll have strong crews to deal with, such as the German, Canadian and American ones.
During the days just before the competition our tension has soared: the increase in trainings, thousands of preparations before the races, unexpected events at the last moment, the interest of the press for the event and for our team - at last the official opening of the Championships has arrived as a relief.
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In this way we have totally plunged into the event, from the charming opening Ceremony on Thursday to the last races on Sunday: four days of emotions and unique experiences.
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The atmosphere we felt inside the "Drago Village" was really exciting: over two thousand athletes coming from all over the world gave life to the event, not only from a sports point of view but also and especially from a human one. We still have both in our hearts and eyes the striking vitality of the women crews who got over the difficult experience of breast cancer and compete in a separate category.
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Gruppo Canoe Roma fully reached its target coming 4th in the 250 m. race and 7th in the 500 m., improving its time in both distances.
The satisfaction for our performance is emphasized by the very good results achieved by the Italian Clubs as a whole: 2nd for medals won by countries - with 5 gold medals, 4 silver and 5 bronze - it’s an unforeseeable success which let us suppose great issues for the future of the Italian Dragon Boat, which we are proud to belong to with full rights.
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The organization of the event was perfect in every detail, thanks to the Organizing Committee and first of all to Claudio Schermi, who is the president of the Italian Dragon Boat Association and who greatly wanted to realize this event.
We would like to greet and thank all the athletes who came to Rome - our town - to face each other fairly and with a sincere sportif spirit and we hope to meet them again in the near future.
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Team GRUPPO CANOE ROMA |
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