DSN Dec17 Final

Dragon Sport News - Emagazine “The Independent Voice of Dragon Boat Sport” December 2017 Winter Edition
TALKING POINT ! – a Look At The Issues Of The Day
Air your views through Talking Point for general views or Drum Beat if you have a particular drum to beat !!
FLY THE SAME FLAG WHERE EVER YOU LIVE – RIGHT OR WRONG OR A NEW TREND TO FOLLOW ?
Taken from an article by Andrew McNicol, that appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Great Britain coach
comes to Hong Kong to recruit talent. https://photos.app.goo.gl/vjCmdpUpywc7eMsD3
This it is an interesting take on recruiting athletes living overseas and it is not against the IDBF Competition
Regulations but is it morally right or really practical, to recruit people who are not living in the Country they are
representing, even though it may well be their Country of Birth. Read on:-
“Oh, east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet” The opening to Rudyard Kipling’s “The Ballad of East and West”
“But there is neither east nor west, border, not breed, not birth; when two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come
from the ends of the earth”, as GB Team Coach Tim Smith kindly reminded his multi-cultural GB Premier Squad !
GB’s Premier Team coach. “Dragon boating is
inside your own shores? We should look
With Team GB comprising 37 Hongkongers – 50 per cent of the squad – Smith
felt the poem was the perfect way to describe his team’s transition over the past few
years, in readiness for the 2017 IDBF World Nations Champs in Kunming, China.
“We had UK-based people and
Hong Kong based people, but in
Kunming we were one squad,
with one focus,” said Smith, who
had been scouting in Hong Kong for
talented paddlers for five years as
global, so why limit your team to
beyond that horizon”
Coach Smith was not fazed by any cultural gaps
within the team, nor the lack of time
to gel. After putting his Hong Kong recruits – all
British passport-holders – through a
series of time-trials, Smith finally settled on his squad for Kunming. The problem was:
how could he train the squad if half of it was based on the other side of the world?
“It has certainly been a unique experience as a coach,” said Smith. “We’ve been
doing the same drills here as we have been doing 7,000 miles away in the UK. “It’s
the same programme, they just had to adjust to the GB stroke a bit, but you
expect all this fine-tuning to happen anyway.” When Smith was back home, Hong
Kong training was run by Vicky Easton of local team Stormy Dragons.
After months of studying Smith’s boat tactics and stroke techniques, both parties met
and trained for the first time at the Victoria Recreation Club in Deep Water Bay.
“As soon as I got in the boat and we
started going, I thought ‘this is the stroke we’ve been learning’,” said women’s
squad member Michelle Lau. “It felt right.” Lau was one of the Hong Kong, GB team
members but has spent substantial time in both the UK and Hkg. She moved to the city 5
years ago and paddles for Stanley-based Seagods.
“The great thing about dragon boating is that everyone moves as one. Everyone has
a place in the boat – you just have to find it.” Lau, recalls swimming alongside three-time
Hong Kong Olympic swimmer Hannah Wilson, when a teenager. “ I won the British university
karate championships four years running, but was always a step shy. Finally I’ve found a
sport where I could make it to the top – it ”
Michael Lee was also called up to the GB squad having spent more than a decade with
Tai Tam Tigers. “One of my friends asked if I could help out one day “ said UK-born Lee.
“He said ‘all you have to do is stay at the back and paddle’, and I’ve carried on doing it for
13 years.”“Coming to Hong Kong – where my parents are originally from – is always good,
and then representing GB – where they raised us – is quite a unique scenario.
“It’s been a real journey since the trials. Changing up home life, lots of pain in the
gym. But this is a standard we know we have to train hard for.”
Lee said some of his club teammates would also be travelling to world championships; not
as spectators, but as competitors. “One guy will be paddling for Spain, and two are paddling for the US. We’ll be meeting up
as different nationals, but showing our Hong Kong roots on a global level. “We are representing our countries but also the
Hong Kong paddling community.
COMMENT: Some would say that such a selection policy is demeaning and unfair on the home based paddlers who might
otherwise have made their National Team and that they will then leave the Sport, undermining the sport’s development, resulting
in a drop in the standard of future crews competing at a World level.
Others say that you should send the strongest Team possible, from paddlers, who meet the IDBF nationality requirements,
meet the local selection criteria and attend training sessions, irrespective of where in the World they actually live. If so, where does
that end ? Well the answer to that was the Team from Chile who competed in 2007 at the World Champs in Sydney. They were
all Chilean citizens living or working in Australia.
So, what do you think about this sort of policy. Go to the DSN Facebook page and record your vote and thoughts there.
Dragon Boating. " More than a Sport – a Tradition " 29.