Following our recent loss in the 2024 College Cup Race and last year’s victory at the Annual Arizona Dragon Boat Festival, our team was determined to bring our best performance to this year’s race in Tempe Town Lake. This festival is a 2-day event set on the weekend of March 29th and 30th in which collegiate, mixed, open, and women’s teams compete in 250, 500, and 1000 meter races in their respective divisions. The qualifying rounds for all race categories were held on Saturday while the finals, knockout sprints, and “Guts & Glory” distance races were held on Sunday.

UCSD entered multiple boats into the following categories: Collegiate (UCSD Fit and UCSD Ready), Women (UCSD Toned), Opens (UCSD Tanned), 250M Knockout (same as collegiate), and Guts And Glory (same as collegiate). With the strive to outperform our results from our first race of the season and keep our title from last year, our Collegiate A boat was able to secure first place for the 500m Collegiate Division A Finals with a time of 2:03.55; and our Collegiate B boat barely missed placement by 0.30 seconds in the 500m Collegiate Division B Finals with a time of 2:15.61. Both boats have improved significantly in this event, shaving off 5+ seconds from last year’s times! 

Our team brought the heat, and for the first time in many years, we placed in all of the events we were in! We secured 3rd in the Women's A and Opens divisions, narrowly missing 2nd place by less than a second for both races. Staying consistent with last year’s victories, UCSD Fit placed 3rd in the Div A knockout race, and UCSD Ready placed 1st in the Div D knockout race. Both knockout races were incredibly close - UCSD Ready had a photo-finish race and UCSD Fit was less than a second behind the first-place team. After not placing last year in the Guts and Glory event, our team was able to redeem ourselves! In the D Division race, our team pushed themselves beyond their limits and passed several boats after starting behind, finishing in 3rd. Our other boat was swapped from B Division to A Division at the last minute, but put in a great effort and came in 2nd, beating out some of the best teams on the West Coast. Although this category had previously not been our strong suit, we were able to climb the ranks after countless hours of brutal long-distance training.

We had an incredibly strong showing at the Arizona Dragon Boat Festival over the weekend. Bolstered by warm, sunny weather and great camaraderie, every single member of the team walked away with a win under their belt and came together to push ourselves towards success. With nearly half of the team being introduced to the sport only a couple of months ago, the accomplishments we earned in this race highlight the dedication and amazing capacity for growth in our paddlers and the dynamic strength of the coaching program. Our coaching staff has been working hard throughout the quarter to make sure everybody was prepared for the races, and the hard work put in by our coaches and team really paid off. This race was a fantastic way to finish Spring Break, and the team is already training hard for our next race in April!