Canoe youth successful at the MUF

Canoe sport is practised with us in many facets. One of our focuses is the single whitewater or touring kayak. These classes of boat foster, especially in the work on the water, each person's individual skills. Of course we go out on the water as a team and support one another where we can, fostering cohesion and the team spirit, but in the single everyone is at first on their own and, unlike our rowers for example, doesn't have to adapt to others in the same boat. It's a typical individual sport.

So it is for most of the children and young people in our canoe section. It's therefore something special when several sit in a four-person racing kayak and have to attune to one another. Even more unusual is when we all train together in a big boat such as our 10-seater team canoe named „Obelix“ or even in one of our dragon boats.

Born out of necessity, because our youth turned up so numerously to training after the summer holidays, while we had very few mentors there, our chair and coach decided on the spur of the moment to let everyone who was there go out in the dragon boat first. Since Corona, in our dragon boat section we've been experiencing rather a lull in terms of numbers, which still persists. So it was great to get a crew out on the water again. After the good boat with the telling name „Wave-Maker“ was neatly stowed back in the store, the coach – who can show, among other things, the B coaching licence in dragon boat competitive sport – was heard to say: „That went pretty well for a first time. Do you happen to have a bit of time and the inclination to take part in the dragon boat race at the Museumsuferfest the Sunday after next (31 August 2025)?“

After a few hesitant „errrr … ummm, … mhhh, hmmm …. why not, actually“, a quick poll was started in our team organisation app, just so we could find out whether we'd get enough paddlers together at all.

With a little support from some mentors and parents, some of whom had never sat in one of the boats before, we actually just about got the number of people needed together to organise first a training session and then the spontaneous late entry to the race in the Sport Cup*. There were only 2 weeks left until the race, so further dragon boat training sessions were scheduled to get everyone into the boat at least once in the end.

On Sunday 31 August the time had come. The coach wasn't even in Frankfurt, as he himself was competing in an outrigger race in Neubrandenburg. He was reluctant to leave his charges but could rely on his fellow mentors who, while not having so much experience with the dragon boat, did with organising and supervising crews at competitions. The crew had entered the mixed Sport Cup.

The heats were completed with a 2nd and once also a 1st place, and in the semi-final, established and experienced sports teams that train often and regularly were pushed out of the further racing by our patchwork team. In the end, the Broncos from Stuttgart, the Vikings from Offenbach, Main Long from Frankfurt and our team were in the final. In the end it was enough for 3rd place in the final and thus onto the podium for bronze.

„I'm so proud of everyone – of our youth, our barely experienced parents and everyone who, with great commitment and passion, not only brought such a crazy and last-minute idea to life but also competed so successfully against experienced teams,“ said our chair.

We congratulate everyone and are thrilled.

Footnote:

*Why the Sport Cup, actually? Well, we are a sports club after all. Even though we'd trained little or not at all in the dragon boat, our coach was reluctant to enter club athletes as fun athletes who had only done a session or two beforehand.