Cobra dragonboat team wins world bronze

MANILA, Philippines - The Cobra PDBF dragonboat team rose above adversity and won a bronze medal in the Small Boat Women’s 500m race of the recent International Dragonboat Federation (IDBF) World Championships in Szeged, Hungary despite a big handicap.

With regular paddler Mary Rose Marinas getting hospitalized after a bad fall prior to the grand finals, Cobra PDBF was forced to tweak its 10-member crew for the final push.

Drummer Maricris Veloso was tapped to paddle in place of Marinas while Judith Hakim, an IDBF licensed race official for Grade 3, took over as drummer, finishing her drummer training just one day before race day.

When the battle for medals came, the Filipinas responded to the challenge and checked in third with 2:29.890 behind full-strength rivals from champion Thailand (2:24.200) and second-placer Chinese Taipei (2:29.620).

It was one of four medals harvested by Cobra PDBF in the worlds, having captured two silvers and another bronze in other standard boat and women’s small boat events.

But this particular bronze shone like gold, considering the circumstances.

Marinas of Phil Air Force suffered a bad fall inside the women’s restroom at night and was fortunately discovered by the Trinidad and Tobago team, which immediately informed the other Cobra PDBF team members. Marinas was rushed to the hospital and was admitted for observation for a minimum of 48 hours.

“We managed to go home at around 3 in the morning and we had a race for the women early in the morning. Since we didn’t have a reserve women’s with us, we decided the drummer (Maricris Veloso) to paddle just to be able for us to compete for the 500m women’s category,” recalled PDBF president Marcia Cristobal.

“Now, the next problem was: who will be the drummer? We asked permission from the Technical Committee if it was possible for Judith Hakim (IDBF race official) to drum for our team. Fortunately, they granted our request. So that’s it. Despite being handicapped we still managed to get bronze in the 500m,” she added.

The Cobra PDBF team is regarded as “the fastest dragon boat racing team” as it still holds the world records for small boat 1,000 meters, standard boat 200 meters men’s and mixed.