Team Chiro stalking dragons in Malaysia

BY LAUREL MYERS

After nine years of intense training and an ever-growing desire to be at the top of their game, Sudbury's Team Chiropractic Dragon Boat racing squad (known as Team Chiro), is off on what may be their most demanding quest for gold.

The team, made up of 15 men and 11 women, will represent the Sudbury Canoe Club. They flew out on Saturday to Penang, Malaysia, the site of the 2008 Club Crew World Championships for dragon boat racing. After capturing a gold at the Canadian National Dragon Boat Club Crew Championships in Calgary in July 2007, Team Chiro earned the right to represent Canada at the international competition.

"Our team is very strong right now and we'd like to think we can get on the podium with the team we have," Team Chiro coach Jeff Walker said. "But until (we) get there and race up against the other teams, (we) don't know."

They will be competing in two categories against some of the world's fastest paddlers - the premier mixed, which includes 12 men and eight women, and the premier open, which is generally an all-men's category. However, Team Chiro will be keeping their ladies in the mix to send the team into battle in these races. In total, the team will blitz through 16-18 races while there.

"It's going to be a lot of racing, if we can survive," Walker said, adding the weather may be their largest contender.

"Malaysia is on the equator and it's going to be very hot and humid," he said. "The conditions that we're going to be racing in there are completely different than what we're racing in here.

"It might end up just being a war of attrition - who can survive the heat the best."

He said the Malaysian team will have an advantage, as they are already accustomed to the heat and won't have to worry about jet lag.

Not that they'll let the heat become their boiling point.

After spending about 14-16 hours per week training in and out of the water preparing for the trip, Team Chiro won't stop until the gold is in their hands.

"We basically worked nine years to get to this point," Walker said. "We're hopeful that all the work and effort we put into training and racing up to this date will put us at the top."

The team captain said the majority of the teams they'll be racing are new, however a few teams have already experienced the paddling ferocity of Team Chiro.

"They've beaten us before and we've beaten them before," he said.

All in all, Walker said the big prize was last year when the team qualified for the world championship.

"It's all gravy right now," he said. "For many of us, it's a trip of a lifetime. We really want to get on the podium, but we're also going there to have a lot of fun.

"We're representing the City of Sudbury when we're over there, not just our team."

The team's first race is scheduled for July 31.