EMILIA-ROMAGNA, Italy — One club of Sarasota dragon boat racers has paddled its way to the biggest competition in the sport's modern history.
This week, Nathan Benderson Park Paddling sent 72 athletes to Ravenna, Italy, to compete at the 14th Annual Club Crew World Championships from Sept. 3-9.
And as NBP Paddling head coach Angela Long puts it — "it's a pretty big deal."
Five local crews, two completely made up of cancer survivors, will be taking on teams from 31 different countries across the globe for what's set to be the largest International Dragon Boat Federation event ever.
While dragon boating is a water sport that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago, its modern iteration features crews of up to 20 paddlers plus a steer and a drummer who race competitively in 40-foot fiberglass boats.
Long has helped grow the sport in Sarasota for the past decade. A breast cancer survivor herself, she started the breast cancer survivor dragon boat team Survivors in Sync in 2013. Now, she coaches the dragon boat program open to the general public.
While Survivors in Sync has raced internationally several times, this year's Club Crew World Championships in Italy marks the first time the entire NBP Paddling club is traveling to a different country to compete.
But amid the success of several national competition wins, the club did hit a few roadblocks.
"We had some challenges this last month due to storms in the evenings. We switched all our practices to mornings, and just as we got that going, Tropical Storm Debby hit and flooded the park," Long added.
For two weeks of their world championship training, NBP Paddling was forced to travel up and down the Tampa Bay area to practice.
“Everybody’s definitely nervous, but I feel we’re as prepared as we’re going to be. We’ve worked really hard," Long said.
You can watch NBP Paddling compete at the 14th Annual Club Crew World Championships live on YouTube all next week. And if you're interested in grabbing a paddle yourself, the club will be recruiting as soon as they return to Sarasota.
A lot of the athletes have developed. They had never paddled before and now here they are competing at a world competition level," Long said. "We're going to have a new paddler day at the end of September. Who knows? You might be at the next crew club competition in two years."
