NSW Corporate Games report – IBM Dragons on Demand.
Sunday March 26 and the NSW Corporate Games – the last big meet of the season for the IBM Dragons on Demand and their quest for victory!
The races moved back to the Regatta Centre at Penrith after last year’s sojourn on the reedy and unforgiving river. This is such a lovely venue, purpose-built for the Olympics. It was a very long pre-dawn drive for most of the team, worse still for some of the crew who had competed the day before in the State titles as part of other teams.
It was a beautiful day and the water was still, calm and peaceful until teams of frenzied paddlers took to the water! We were able to enter 2 crews, ingeniously named IBM Dragons on Demand 1 and 2!
Team 2 competed in the morning’s heats placing 1st twice and 2nd once, enabling us to qualify for the semi finals. We had some pretty fierce competition so were really lucky to have scraped through.
Team 1 had its heats in the afternoon. We had what, on paper, looked like a much harder draw, having to race against Caltex, who have been quite a powerful team of late. They were a definite contender for gold, but that wasn’t going to stop us – we were up for a challenge! Caltex won the 1st heat with IBM1 2nd. The 2nd and 3rd heats had the results reversed, with IBM1 causing a major upset!
Both teams made it to the semi finals as pool winners. This was pretty impressive and was starting to mirror last year’s results where we again had 2 teams and again made it to the semi finals.
The bad luck of last year continued to replicate itself with both teams again missing out on a final’s berth. We were content in knowing that there was a very strong field represented this year. The final was taken out by GHD, with Origin Energy taking out the silver and Macquarie Bank the bronze. Our teams were placed 2nd and 3rd behind Pepsico in the minor final.
We left the venue without medals but with smiles on our faces. I think we were feeling quite relaxed, now that the season is all but over. Having a team masseuse certainly helps with those aches and pains as well as relaxing us between races. Poor Vanessa probably had more of a workout than the paddlers! There was time between racing and cheering for a few laughs and team bonding which was continued at our regular post-Corporate-Games venue of the Lone Star Bar and Restaurant where we were able to relive the highs and lows of the day.
All-in-all we had a great day! We paddled well, but missed out on the medals. There’s always next year……
IBM 1:
Cindy McCutcheon, Sian Summers, Karen Ko, Tony Farrell, Melvin Ng, Mark Czajkowski, Anne Wilkes, Kaye Mendez, Ingrid Sumargo, Deborah Date-Chong, Eizac Chee, Erik Berger, Wa Mio, Eddie Au, Frank Arraiza, Cynthia Summers, James Khoo, Andre Dobes, Owen Francis, Chau Dong, Scott le.
IBM 2:
Mish Chim, Danielle Toon, Kim DaCosta, Will Wenkart, Richard Wilcox, Richard Tran, John He, Eric Wong, Bang Duong, Steve DaCosta, Jenny O'Hearn, Bin Chen, Eunice Gilbang, Lili Luong, Danielle Harmer, Ajay Brar, Gregor Erdmann, Faisal Mirza, Liz Gibson, John Carroll, Julie Mungomery.
For any more information on the team or if you wish to be kept abreast of what we’re up to, please contact John Carroll.
