Local Dragon Boat team heading to world championships

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A year ago, Amelia Carter wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what dragon boating was. 

So, it comes as quite the surprise that the 36-year-old math intervention assistant at Pleasant Valley Primary School will soon be participating in the Dragon Boat Club Crew World Championships in Adelaide, Australia, during the first week of April.

“It sounds crazy to me,” Carter said. “Last year I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what dragon boating was. It wasn’t even part of my world. Now, to be able to take part in the world championships, it’s amazing.”

Carter is one of the newest members of the Vancouver Lake Dragon Boating team, Catch-22. She said she joined the team in late August last year after one of her neighbors who is on the team sent out a random email to people in the neighborhood asking if they wanted to join. Having only heard of dragon boating in the Portland Rose Festival, Carter was interested and decided to give the sport a try.

“I’ve always definitely been into sports,” Carter said. “I’ve always liked being active, I used to be an instructor at LA Fitness. I was kind of looking for something new, a new physical activity. I’m the kind of person who needs to be held accountable, so I figured if I signed up for the team it would make me go exercise. I love being on the water anyways.”

When Carter joined the team in August, they had already qualified for the race in Australia. They asked her to be on the team competing in the world championships because they didn’t have enough members, and of course she said yes. 

Janna Brown, one of the coaches and members of the Catch-22 team, said the team first got started in 2012 and was originally launched by her and Jeff Campbell, who has started a dragon boat program for disabled veterans. As a team, Brown said they competed for the first time locally in 2014 and then had the opportunity to qualify for the International Dragon Boat Festival Club Crew World Championships in Australia. 



“Now we have 24 women from Southwest Washington who will be representing the Southwest Washington area on the Vancouver Lake Catch-22 team and will compete that first week in April,” Brown said. “I think they’ll do great and for those of us who don’t get to go, it’s just killing us, but we’ll be there in spirit.”

Brown, who is a 13-year breast cancer survivor, said members of the Catch-22 team are also in the process of forming a breast cancer survivor team, and will be helping to host the Row for the Cure on Vancouver Lake on July 24. She said they even had a boat donated for the event (a big pink one) by the Kearney Breast Center at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center. 

In addition, the Dragon Boat team is also planning to put on a breast cancer awareness fundraiser on Oct. 1. It will be a fundraising dragon boat race event that will benefit a selected charity or charities for breast cancer survivors in Southwest Washington. Although she said she hasn’t yet confirmed, Brown said the charity will most likely be the Pink Lemonade Project. She said there will probably be somewhere between 30-50 participating dragon boat teams.

Brown pointed out that dragon boating is actually great exercise for breast cancer survivors, as it’s excellent for the upper body. 

Both Brown and Carter encouraged anyone interested in dragon boating to come down to Vancouver Lake one day and check it out. Brown said interested people can find the club on www.meetup.com, and she encourages new people to come out to Vancouver Lake on Saturday mornings at about 8:30 until 10 a.m. She said she teaches people the basic stroke and then takes them out on the water for some fun drills.

To find out more about the Catch-22 team, visit their Facebook page, Vancouver Lake Dragon Boating: Catch-22.