Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San Fer­nan­do) Vikings Drag­on Boat Club made their pres­ence felt by cap­tur­ing gold and sil­ver medals at the re­cent 11th Car­rera de Botes de Dragón (Drag­on Boat Fes­ti­val) in Pana­ma City, which was held along the Amador Cause­way, held from Oc­to­ber 24-25.

The club ex­ceed­ed all ex­pec­ta­tions with stand­out per­for­mances, re­ceiv­ing the gold medal at the 2,000-me­tre and the 500me Ju­ve­nile Un­der-24 cat­e­gories, then tak­ing sil­ver in the 200-me­tre event. They were led by cap­tain Adam Paramsook and vice-cap­tain Ethan Jag­mo­han, who on the day spear­head­ed a dis­play of dis­ci­pline, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and the col­lec­tive strength need­ed to ex­cel in a sport where every pad­dle stroke counts.

They were ac­com­pa­nied by the St Joseph Con­vent (San Fer­nan­do) Drakainas Drag­on Boat Club, which not on­ly per­formed with cred­it at the same event, but fin­ished just out­side the medals of an event that fea­tured over 35 teams and is re­gard­ed as one of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca's most com­pet­i­tive drag­on boat fes­ti­vals.

A re­lease stat­ed, “Their jour­ney from Vista­bel­la to the Amador Cause­way shows that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s young pad­dlers are ready to test them­selves be­yond lo­cal wa­ters and that the next chap­ter of school drag­on boat rac­ing could hold even greater promise.”

It not­ed fur­ther, "The Drakainas al­so made the most of their in­ter­na­tion­al de­but, de­liv­er­ing a com­mend­able per­for­mance across four cat­e­gories and record­ing per­son­al bests. The team came close to a podi­um fin­ish in the Pre­mier Fe­male 200-me­tre cat­e­go­ry, miss­ing bronze by just two sec­onds."

Drakainas cap­tain Tyler Welch praised the team’s per­for­mance, recog­nis­ing the val­ue of com­pet­ing against in­ter­na­tion­al op­po­nents and the lessons learned. She al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism about ap­ply­ing those lessons as the Drakainas pre­pare for lo­cal re­gat­tas in 2027.

The ex­pe­ri­ence for both clubs is ex­pect­ed to boost their per­for­mances at lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions in the fu­ture.

Both clubs train at the San Fer­nan­do Yacht Club in Vista­bel­la un­der the guid­ance of coach­es Dayne Lewis, Dim­itri Brit­ton and Jo­hann Charles. The achieve­ments of the two school clubs come ahead of the ex­cit­ing drag­on boat rac­ing sea­son in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, “The sport has es­tab­lished a pres­ence in the na­tion­al sport­ing cal­en­dar, with one of its main events, the In­ter-School Drag­on Boat Com­pe­ti­tion, con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide a plat­form for sec­ondary-school ath­letes and re­in­force the im­por­tance of in­tro­duc­ing young peo­ple to the sport and de­vel­op­ing tal­ent ear­ly.”

The clubs’ in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence presents sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for the fu­ture of school drag­on boat­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go and high­lights the po­ten­tial val­ue of sus­tained in­vest­ment in school-based drag­on boat pro­grammes. Stronger links be­tween schools, clubs, coach­es and the na­tion­al fed­er­a­tion could help ex­pand par­tic­i­pa­tion, im­prove ac­cess to equip­ment and train­ing fa­cil­i­ties, and es­tab­lish clear­er de­vel­op­ment path­ways for emerg­ing pad­dlers.

Fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties may al­so in­clude ad­di­tion­al in­ter­na­tion­al ex­changes, re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions, struc­tured youth de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives and in­creased pri­vate and pub­lic-sec­tor in­vest­ment and spon­sor­ship.

Squads

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do Vikings: Adam Paramsook (cap­tain), Amari Roberts, Ar­av Joad­s­ingh, Christophe Kelshall, Ehsan Ahmed, Ethan Jag­mo­han (vice cap­tain), George Laing, Jay­den Young, Je­re­mi­ah Sa­landy Ali, Josh Fritz, Kaleb Ben­jamin, Mar­cion Davis, Seth Al­l­leyne, Uza­yr Ali, Vitha­la Chat­ter­goon, Xavier Far­rell.

St Joseph Con­vent San Fer­nan­do Drakainas: Clydri­ana Kelshall, El­la Wag­n­er, Jayelle Dookhi, Kait­lyn Sar­wan, Kaylee Roopan, Kayleigh To­bas, Kezi­ah Gopaul (vice cap­tain), Sa'rai Ince, Tris­ten Welch, Tyler Welch (cap­tain), Za­li­ka Hen­ry.