In the days of Team Chiro and various other local vessels that followed to some degree in their footsteps, Sudbury paddlers were in the business of making waves at dragon boat competitions both in Canada and also around the globe.

And while the challenges of assembling a team some twenty strong has created the need to look for other alternatives, rest assured that Sudbury paddlers continue to garner attention – just not all on the same team.

The Canadian Dragon Boat Championships were hosted from July 20th to the 23rd in Welland and no less than six local athletes managed to qualify to attend the 2024 World Club Crew Championships in Ravenna, Italy.

Rob Gregoris, Brenda Loubert and Deb Doucette will all represent the Canadian Senior Dragonboat Club (CSDC) while Dave Barrett and Julie Vakaroskov are back with the Pickering Dragon Boat Club (PDBC) and Melanie Cartier is with True North Paddling Club.

None of the sextet are strangers in the least to this scene, with all having competed on the international stage previously. Though Barrett, Vakaroskov and Cartier are all with the same teams with whom they enjoyed a great deal of success competing at the 2022 World Club Crew Championships in Sarasota last August, the remaining trio opted to make a change this spring.

“That was our hope, to stay together,” said Loubert, having paddled with Gregoris since roughly 2005 or so, the pair welcoming Doucette to the mix more recently and the troika spending time on the water as members of Great Lakes Paddlers.

Still, it was time for a change.

“I don’t think that we had a really long history of how they (Canadian Senior Dragonboat Club) were doing, but I think Rob knew someone there,” added Loubert. It’s the latest chapter in a friendship that dates back to 1987 or so and, not surprisingly, came together via the water sports scene.

A recreational therapist with then Algoma Hospital, Loubert had just made the move to Sudbury from Sault Ste Marie and was drawn to the L.U. pool as an outlet for the patients at that time.

“That was the first time I met Rob,” she said. “They were paddling in the pool, practicing whitewater kayaking. I didn’t know anybody in Sudbury, so I started kayaking first and then did sea kayak for I don’t know how many years.”

Though her athleticism had also allowed her to shine on the ball diamonds in slo-pitch and feel pretty much at ease in sports ranging from volleyball to nordic ski, Loubert was particularly drawn to paddling endeavours. “I got selected out of a gym for Team Chiro,” she recalled.

While she is not the least bit new to posting impressive results in the domain that is dragon boating, the limited history with CSDC had Loubert and her teammates tempering their expectations as the racing began in Welland.

“We were elated at just how well the team had done,” she said. “I don’t know that we expected to do as well as we did. I would have to go back and take a look, but I think that every single team barring one came back with silver or gold.”

Relative to Gregoris and Loubert, Deb Doucette is a newcomer to competitive dragon boat racing. Born in Sudbury, she would move to Nova Scotia with her family, making her way back to northern Ontario some two decades later, but only after now having some experience on the water.

“When we lived in Nova Scotia, we did some white water canoeing,” said Doucette, now 57 years old. “A bunch of us knew a couple of places to go and we would just go out and do the run.”

Her return to Sudbury coincided near perfectly with the introduction of the Sudbury Dragon Boat Festival. A very solid cardio base allowed Doucette to jump in easily with a few different recreational entries over a period of seven years at the July summer tradition – though it wouldn’t take much to prompt her to take the next step.

“Julie Alleyn (Team Chiro) offered me a spot on the Team Phoenix boat one night when they did not have enough paddlers and I said I’m on it,” recalled Doucette with a laugh. But as many have come to know, years of experience in a boat does not necessarily equate to paddling perfection right off the hop.

“I had to do some tweaking,” said Doucette. “My stroke wasn’t the same as everyone else’s. I knew how to stay in stroke, but they had a different technique from the way I was taught. I had to learn their technique – and of course everybody has some bad habits that they need to break.”

Still, she learned quickly, joining Rob Gregoris, Peter Zuliani, Dave Arnold and Lawrence Duguay in attending the 2018 World Club Crew Championships in Szeged, Hungary. “The bond that we developed with the Sudbury paddlers there, that was my gold medal,” said Doucette.

Following are the results for all six of the local paddlers:

Gold Medal Winners
Melanie Cartier (True North) – Senior A Women
Dave Barrett (PDBC) – Senior B Mixed (small boat)
Dave Barrett (PDBC) – Senior B Open (small boat)

Silver Medal Winners
Dave Barrett (PDBC) – Senior A Mixed (small boat)
Julie Vakaroskov (PDBC) – Senior A Women (small boat)
Julie Vakaroskov (PDBC) – Senior A Mixed (small boat)
Deb Doucette (CSDC) – Senior B Women
Brenda Loubert (CSDC) – Senior B Women
Rob Gregoris (CSDC) – Senior C Mixed (small boat)
Rob Gregoris (CSDC) – Senior C Open

* the A-B-C designations refer to age restrictions: A (ages 40 to 49); B (ages 50 to 59); C (ages 60+)