Yaco

Sunday, June 18, 2006

17 June

Woah. The race is finally over.

not in the mood to talk about the past week. anyway nothing much happened apart from our two training at bedok reservoir which was pretty ok.

now, though, a blow by blow recount of today's event. if you are bored of reading about this kinda stuff then dun read lor but i gotta blog everything down cos it's like one of the most important day to me and i never want to forget it.

First, we met up in school at 10 and then mr lee showed us some video clips of dragonboating. after watching the video clips, we went to have lunch.

oh yeah, i suddenly thought of something i wanna comment on. i think dragonboat's budget is crazy.

for a start, the cost of the boat rental itself is already alot sia. each training we rent about 3 boats and sometimes got small boat so each training cost about $100 for the boat rental fees. and we have about 3-4 trainings each week so it's about $300 to $400 each week and more then $1k per month la. and that's just the boat rental. we seem to have like a free flow of shuttle bus or something. go everywhere also got shuttle bus... dunno where the money come from sia.

ok, back to topic.

after eating, we took a shuttle bus down to bedok reservoir and then rested awhile and started our warm up.

first up were the 20 men race. our j2 were in heats 1 and we were in heats 2. the j2 got first in their heats and were leading by quite alot but we got 2ndin our heats, lost to nj by quite abit. anyway, we managed to advance to the finals.

oh yeah, we were the only j1s there lor. some of the other teams may have a few j1 inside cos not enough people but we were the only team with a 20 men boat full of j1s lor. so any team we win is winning the j2s from other schools liao.

then next is 10 men boat. ny got 4 teams and both heats got 1 j1 and 1 j2 from ny. we were in the first heats and got 2nd. lost nj again. but we won our seniors so we were damn happy at that time. 1st and 2nd from each heats advance to finals while 3rd,4th,5th go to semi finals where the 1st and 2nd from there will go to finals. the j2 and j1 in the other heats didn't do that well. the j2 gotta go semi but the j1 were out le.

oh yeah. the time in between every race is like damn short lor. we got off the boat warm down liao then almost straight away gotta warm up and go down liao. but this thing wasn't so bad as it was the same for everyone.

and i think if i drink everyday like i drink today i think will kena diabetes sia. drank a crazy amount of the glucose and red bull. sweet till crazy sia. then the snacks given also damn sweet. wah, after that plain water tasted damn good.

one of the j2 managed to advance to the finals for the 10 men boat.

then it is finals for the 10 men boat le.

got 4th for that but we don't have anyone to blame but ourselves. wasn't too composed and started to hurry abit when we saw that other boats were ahead of us. j2 got third for that. first is nj and second is acjc.

then is the finals for the 20men boat le.

here is where all the bullshit began.

first, we got boat 6, lane 6. ok, nvm that we are at the end with all the stupid waves but they dun even give us the freaking boat! boat 6 disappeared and we didn't have any boat and were stuck on the shore for ages la. then they told us to go to another boat but then the other boat was being used and the people from the race had an argument with the people from the other boat and in the end we had to use a boat that was meant for another race. by this time all the other boats have rowed the 500m to the starting mark and were fully rested even before we reached there la. then the moment we got near there we were hurried to the starting line and told to get ready. then suddenly without any warning we saw people from the other boat raising their paddles and start rowing before we even know what was happening. then we panicked and started rowing. turns out it's because the stupid idiots who press the horn decided to do something special for the last race and drive their speedboat in a circle around us and pressed the horn while they were still moving and were way too far away from us for the horn to be heard. cos the race before this we were also in lane 6 and could hear the horn. so we only started rowing when we saw lane 5 boat start rowing and they only started rowing cos they saw the other boats moving. i think only the first 3 or 4 boats could hear the start lor.

so by the time we started, the other boats were already more then 1 boat length ahead of us le. even the boat in lane 5 was 3/4 of a boat infront of us la. but then i think we rowed our best set so far cos we were so freaking pissed off and managed to catch up to become 4th. and we were only like 1 boat liddat behind the 3rd la. if we had a proper start we could have a chance of beating them and getting that freaking medal de lor!!!

wah. when the race ended, everyone was cursing and swearing like crazy. and the officals there still had the freaking nerve to tell us to hurry up and that we were very very late cos they needed to use the boat we were using for the other race that we took the boat from. whose fault is it in the first place?

then we did our warm down and started talking. in the middle of talking, some of the guys broke down and started crying, me included. cos we really gave it our all during the race and we have trained so hard and spent so much time and effort, only to be screwed up by the freaking officals. really felt very very bu gan xin lor. if you all know me, you know that i very zhong face one and for me to cry in public is like something impossible to happen de la. i really tried very hard to control but simply failed and the tears came out.

but now come to think of it, i am kinda glad that this fucking thing happened. all the guys are more closely bonded together because of this shit and we know what we can do if we really wanted to. also kinda showed me who is really passionate about the sport and the team too.

overall results.
A Division 10 men boat: J2- 3rd. J1- 4th.
A Division 20 men boat: J2- 2nd. J1- 4th.
A Division 10 women boat : J2- 3rd
A Division 20 women boat: J2 and J1 mixed boat: 2nd.

champion for everything was nj. really nothing to say, they were really really strong. but we saw their team b for the 10 men and there should be some chance at the gold next year if we work really hard. cos their team a and team b differences is really huge. their team a were leading in our heats like crazy but their team b in the second heats were 5th.

so now it's up to us to train hard enough so we get that freaking gold next year.

oh yeah, for some reason, we got the team champion for men overall. i think it's cos we were the only one with two teams in the finals.

then after that we went to tampines swimming complex to shower and then off we went to The Rice Table at suntec city for our post race dinner. it was ala carte buffet so we just sat there and ordered like crazy. at first the food were coming fast but then somewhere the food suddenly jammed. i think it's cos we ate up all the food they prepared in advance. kinda easy ordering sia. everything on the menu x2 for my table. i think we went through about 5 sets or so. crazy hungry people. though for some reason, all the veg remained kinda untouched and they were being passed from table to table with no one eating them. guess i am not the only one who hates veg then.

ate from 8+ to about 10 before we went out and started photo whoring. well, not really everyone but some were like taking with everyone and anyone they happen to see. took afew group photos too.

well, that's about the end of today. about time to switch to cramming mode liao.

siao liao le... i totally haven started on my homework except for 4 maths mcq qns and zero for my revision and midyear is in.... 5 days time? cos it's now 2am on sunday.

holy shit.

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