Pool of Life News 2007
Worcester ‘Pool of Life’ Race Report
At last wagons rolled down to Worcester charity regatta now the floods have dried up (and a few of the crew). Someone up their was thinking of us as we had a late start as our first race was 12:00 noon halleluiah! Arrived at 10:30 am with a 5 mile trek down to the river and set up camp ’Pool of Life and then off for a safety briefing all of 2 minutes, “what we have to wear buoyancy aids”.
11:00 am and all the team arrive thank god as we only have 16 with no spare paddlers on the river bank. ‘Pool of Life’ give support to the Worcester Busters first race with 8 Breast Cancer survivors and 8 supporters in their team, loud Amathus cheers from the river bank for the Busters.
Well our first race is here, loading the boat with a pool helm and a pool drummer, the mighty girl power of ‘Pool of Life’ (this includes the 3 lady boys, Geraldine, Josephine and Christine) perfect balance first time, 80 stroke warm ups down to the start line, what did someone shout we’ve done this before did we look that good! Yes we were awesome first race and we won by a full boat length, the Thursday night hard training paid off. Race 2,3, same results 1ssssssssssssssssssst we were on a role no one could stop us the Amathus blood was running hot, we wanted more.
A paddle salute was given to Worcester Busters a courageous team of breast cancer survivors on their journey to find the dragon, memories of Singapore and the 1st World Championships came flooding back.
A place in the MAJOR PLATE FINAL what an achievement for ‘Pool of Life’ a first in 3 years. Warm up, group hug, Brenda shared her sexwax and some good advise from Geraldine (we will be getting a Dave tash for Gerald at the next ‘Pool of Life’ event) and with a song in our hearts off we went to kick some arse.
Boat loaded, Geraldine’s advice to plant it hard was with some aggression that we were a bit worried about Marion if this is the way he speaks to us what about poor Marion??? We agreed that Geraldine would shout this as we paddled to the finish line. We were off to a good start all paddles buried, hands wet and we rotated long and strong we kept with the other teams all the way, the hoot at the finish line WE’VE WON, the drummer agreed, the race officials at the boats agreed. We had to wait until all the races had finished for the result. ‘Pool of Life’ 2nd we could not believe it, was it a photo finish I thought of Dave with the pixel finish in London, none of us could believe it. Should we ask to see the photo finish, their strokes were 2 seats behind our strokes on the finish line, our drummer belonged to their team and could not believe that we did not win, 1.33.85 and the other team 1.33.65 Any way I will stop whingeing now I think you get the gist, we thought we won’t complain after all it is only a charity race and we did win our first ever trophy on British soil the Amathus bloods runs hot in the veins of ’Pool of Life’ we want to win.
A big thank you to the girls and boys who joined us on this triumphant day, it would not of been possible if these wonderful Amathus people did not support us at Worcester on this successful joyful day THANK YOU.