Bronze medals were the order of the day for the Outback Dragons at the Pan Pacific Masters Games on the Gold Coast. 

The Outback Dragons brought home several bronze medals at the world’s biggest biennial masters’ event, which concluded on Saturday, November 9. 

The Pan Pacific Masters welcomed competitors from all over the world, including Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, India, Singapore, America, and Canada. 

Outback Dragons publicity officer Chris Robinson told Dubbo Photo News that it was a very competitive event. “There were 45 teams and 1200 paddlers, with three New Zealand teams and one from Singapore, with the rest all coming from across all different parts of Australia,” she said. 

Competition began for the dragon boat racing on Thursday, November 7, with races kicking off from 7:30am each morning. This meant the Outback Dragons had to be up early and out ready to race. 

“You’re all up at about 5am, to get out to race at the lakes,” Chris said. 

The Outback Dragons competed in all three categories including Women’s, Mixed (50-50 equal split of men and women) and Opens, where it was all about strength and speed. 

“Opens is one of our big strength areas. You can have as many men in [the boat] as you want,” she said. 

All races across the three categories on the first day were 500-metres each. While the club originally thought they only had 11 races on the first day, the Outback Dragons faced three massive days of non-stop racing after successful results led them to placings in the finals for nearly every category. 

“We just kept getting into the finals. We were going from early in the morning and we all did not get home until much later in the evening,” she said. 

On the second day of competition all races were 200-metres in length. On the third and final day of competition, there was a five-kilometre race, with the Dragons fielding one boat in that event. 

Chris told Dubbo Photo News that the Outback Dragons teamed up with competitors from Forbes to bring extra power to the club in the lead up to competition. 

“We had 16 from Outback Dragons, and about eight or so from Forbes, so we teamed up and called ourselves the Lachlan Dragons,” she said. 

The club brought home a fair few bronze medals to add to the trophy cabinet at the clubhouse on the Macquarie River. 

There were two age categories, with the club coming away with the bronze medals in the Senior A 40+ age category, being the younger of the two groups. 

“The younger age group is where we won our medals in, we’re pretty proud of that,” Chris said. 

A special congratulations ought to be given to Trangie local and paddling superstar Rhonda Betts who not only competed in the dragon boat racing but also completed and finished on the podium in two indoor rowing events at the Pan Pacific Masters Games earlier this month.