Over the weekend of August 18 and 19, the OWLS Dragonflies competed at the 2012 Victoria Dragon Boat Festival, their first international dragon boat competition since 2010, on the Victoria Inner Harbour, British Colombia.  Thanks to some of the fiercest competition that the Pacific Northwest has to offer and the busy waters of Victoria’s Inner Harbour, the OWLS Dragonflies had a great racing weekend.
 
Rounds 1 and 2 of the competition took place on Saturday, August 18.  The Dragonflies took the first round by storm by winning with a time of 2:19.90, the second fastest time of any women’s dragon boat team for that round.  The Flies dominated again in Round 2 by winning with a time of 2:22.16.  By winning the first two rounds with such fast times, the Flies advanced to the top division, Platinum.
 
The semi-final round of the Platinum Division took place on Sunday, August 19.  The Flies once again dominated by winning with a time of 2:24.35 (once again, the second fastest time of any women’s dragon boat team), which secured the Flies a spot in the Platinum Division Championship.

The Championship round proved to be the toughest of the weekend. In the closest race of the festival, the Flies were competitive, but ended up placing 5th overall.  With a time of 2:20:64, the Flies came in 1.52 seconds behind the gold medal winners and 0.33 seconds behind the bronze medal winners.  It was a tough race ending with 5 boats together at the finish line, but the Flies proved they were worthy competition for any Pacific Northwest team.
 
The OWLS Dragonflies would like to thank our coach Laura Ricker, our generous sponsors, as well as all of our friends and family who made the trek to Canada to watch us race.  In addition, we would like to thank the Portland Fire Dragons, who took time out of their race preparation to cheer us on.

Fifth place = keychain

We'll try and get a pics of the final times later, but all five teams were within about one second. Great race!

We did it again! In a super-close semi-final race for the women's platinum division, the 'Flies came in first!

We race again at 3:48 in the championship race.

Second race, first place again!

First place in our first race. Second fastest time for women this morning!

We race again at 3:55 this afternoon.

On Friday, August 17th, the OWLS Dragonflies will travel to Canada to compete in the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival on the Inner Harbour in Victoria, B.C.  The races take place on Saturday and Sunday, and the first round race for the ‘Flies will be Saturday morning at 11:55 a.m. We hope to post live updates on Saturday and Sunday, international data plans permitting.

We know our fans will miss cheering for the ‘Flies in person, but we will be back in Portland racing again on September 8 and 9 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Until then, we would love to hear from our supporters in the comments.