PORT Macquarie Flamin’ Dragons men’s crew backed up last year’s gold medal success with another gold medal at Elizabeth Reserve on November 18 and 19.
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The battle of the sexes has continued among clubmates following the weekend’s regatta with the club’s women’s crew quick to point out the men still have some work to do.
The women won four successive regattas, but club secretary Andrew Blundell admitted it was now “the men’s turn to take over.”
“They won it four years running, but we’re quick to remind them that they’re allowed to have 20 in the boat and we can only have 10,” he said.
Included in the men’s gold medal crew were six new members, including one first-timer.
“We had three original team members, so there were about six or seven newbies which meant we had to break them in,” Blundell said.
“Paul Dixon was rowing in his first regatta after he had only been paddling for a month, so he said now he has a gold medal he can retire.”
The Great Lakes Pearl Dragons hosted the annual regatta with 37 teams from 16 clubs between Deepwater on the Central Coast and Grafton competing for bragging rights.
It was an increase on the numbers at last year’s regatta and Blundell believed the men’s success was more fulfilling than their first win last year.
“There were 16 clubs in total which was a lot more than last year so we can now say we’re rightly the best in the area from the Central Coast up to Grafton,” he said.
The Port Macquarie club secretary admitted the key to their success was on “training, training, training.”
“We asked members to train at least twice a week, but some of them did four sessions as well as work in the gym and walking to keep their fitness levels up,” he said.
“We’ve been concentrating on power and speed more so than the traditional way of rowing and it worked.”
The club also finished in third place in the mixed division and were awarded the fastest time over the 500-metre course on Saturday.