Muhfuggers/Poi Pounders Medaled in Long Beach

Dragon head on dragon boat in the 2009 Viewsonic Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival

Thousands of DB racers and spectators came to Marine Stadium in Long Beach, CA for comraderie, the great California weather and a great weekend of dragon boat racing.

Game faced Rico, Ceez and Jeremy with fellow Space Dragons awaiting their turn to compete in the Men's (open) race.

The Water Muhfuggers competed and medaled in the 2009 Viewsonic Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival on the weekend of August 1st and 2nd.

Brian Kellough waiting to race.

They trained for months and could not wait to compete against teams from all over the United States, China, Trinidad and Australia.

From left to right: Jeremy Sander, Rico Rivas, Deadra Doctolero, Jeremy Carver, Brian Kellough, Kieren Cobb, Ferdinand Karandang, Caesar, Tammy Cobb and Blanca Pena.

Missing: Arlene Dizon.

Jeremy, Deadra, Brian, Blanca and Caesar represented the Red team brought home the bronze against some tough competition in the division A 200m finals with a time of 00:52:58. Of the seven teams that qualified for the finals, Long Beach teams took the top 3 spots in the finals, leaving four Northern California teams in their wakes.

Rico, Jeremy Carver and Tammy Cobb garnered a silver medal coming in second in the 500m Mixed IIC divisiion with a time of 02:30:41. They battled hard and looked like they were going to get the gold, but was edged out by the surging MLIS Predators, a team from Trinidad.

Arlene Dizon and Ferdinand Karandang got gold medals in a hard fought race in the 200m B division finals with a time of 00:56:52. They beat out another Long Beach based team, the Electric Dragons Yellow, by 00:26 seconds for the gold!! The first place finish made them 200m B division champions the biggest division in the tournament with 35 teams.

Never mind. We found Arlene!!

It was Ferdinand's first ever tournament. He only had about a month of training, but he showed why he is known as the pride of the Phillipines that weekend. Ferdie in his first tournament, already bought two carbon fiber paddles!! He is the first on the team to purchase a Merlin and a Grey Owl carbon fiber paddle. He will collect paddles like he collects softball bats!!

The Pride of the Phillipines

It was a great weekend of racing. Although the Muhfugger Space Dragons did not medal in their other races such as the Women's, Men's and Master's races, they were very happy to win medals in the mixed divisions and just having fun out there.

Some links: From the CNN website http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-308470

Next for the Muhfuggers/Pois is a tournament at Lake Gregory/Lake Arrowhead, San Francisco and a possible tournament at Lake Las Vegas.