Aquaholics look to continue Dragon Boat success

TT’s most experienced and decorated Dragon Boat club, Aquaholics are geared up for the Pan American Club Crew Championship splashing off today, at the Pigeon Point Beach, Tobago.

Captain of the team, Jason Lau Quan said, “We will go out there and do what we are trained to do and try not to disappoint. We like the challenge; when you are on top, you are a target. We cannot be going into a race without confidence; we are prepared both mentally and physically for these events.”

Aquaholics are deemed favourites to capture several titles and will be competing in a total eight events over the three-day competition. They are participating in the: 2,000m Open; 2,000m Mixed; 1,000m Open; 1,000m Mixed; 500m Open; 500m Mixed; 200m Open and the 200m Mixed.

Entering in so many events is no easy task but Lau Quan believes his team has trained well enough to get the job done. He said, “It is very difficult participating in so many events because we have exact crew with two substitutes so, it is very taxing on the athlete but we have prepared for it since last year October. The local regattas held in TT are usually one or two days but this one is spread across three days so we have more time to recover.”

The skipped continued, “We trained Saturday and Sunday from 7-9am, we have people coming from different parts of the country and showing plenty commitment, we do one land training session during the week and everyone is involved in some sort of gym activity.”

The team was established in 2006 since the inception of dragon boat racing in TT and have won gold in Orlando (2012), achieved a world ranking of 12th in Italy (200Metres Mixed) and gold (2000M), silver 500M) and bronze (200M) at the 2015 Pan Am Games, Canada.

Lau Quan believes there will be no surprises from his foreign competitors “We follow them and have good interaction with them on social media so we are familiar with some of the other teams.”