“It’s really exciting because it’s just going to demonstrate to the community and all the participants at the lake how there are very much world-class opportunities here in Lethbridge. We’ve actually been told we could host an international event because of our venue and commitment from Rotary.”
The annual festival takes around 300 volunteers to run but Randell says the community support is always so immense the entire event runs seamlessly. And that can’t be very easy, seeing as the 60 crews break into three categories — women’s, youth and mixed — with each race running five or six boats each time.
Plus, the festival is an official dragon boat event and follows sanctioned international rules. Therefore many of the operational team must bring a vast knowledge of the sport.
The Lethbridge crews have been working under the tutelage of two very passionate coaches, who have been volunteering their time on a daily basis — at least, those without weather warnings — to train each team. Karen Collin and Dave Hunt are both professionally certified to teach dragon boat techniques.
“We start with them as early in May as we can get the boats here,” says Collin. “We’re at the lake Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday just teaching everybody what we know.”
While the weekend event is meant to put a large focus on the sport and competition of dragon boat racing, Randell says it’s also geared at bringing the people of Lethbridge out and getting them involved in their community.
The beer gardens might act as a pretty decent catalyst for that but an extensive lineup of music and entertainment by performers from all over is sure to do its part. Admission is free to the public and any proceeds left after the weekend will go towards other Rotary projects.
For a preview of the musical entertainment, check out Richard Amery’s The Buzz column on page 9.