A Fort Langley-based dragon boat team of women aged 60 and older is officially the best in B.C.
Last week, members of Team Titanium collected their gold medals from a provincial series that often pitted them against much younger competitors to become the top-rated dragon boat team of women in the province.
“Most of the events, we raced against all ages,” said team captain Colleen Littledale.
We’ve done really well.”
Winners of the Tim Hortons provincial race series were determined by their placements in several events, including the Dragon Zone 500 championship, Concord Pacific dragon boat festival, and the Harrison, Kamloops, Steveston and Penticton dragon boat festivals.
Teams were required to register in a minimum of four of the six races to be eligible to win.
It was a “sort of a points system,” said Littledale, one that rewarded consistent performance.
Coach Ben Lee praised the team for outracing rivals who were sometime less than half their age.
“Age is just a number for [them],” Lee said.
“They train hard.”
There are currently 26 paddlers on Team Titanium, half of them from Langley and the rest from various Fraser Valley communities including Harrison, Chilliwack, Mission and Abbotsford.
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Team Titanium was formed in 2012 after the International Dragon Boat Federation created a new competitive category called senior C for age 60 and up.
Titanium has competed at all the local regattas throughout the Dragon boat seasons since 2013, taking on all age groups.
In their first year, the team took bronze in the 2013 National Club Crew Championships.
And the year after that, they qualified for the first senior C division of the world club crew championships in Ravenna, Italy.
Other notable accomplishments include winning one bronze and two silver medals at the 2016 club crew world championships (CCWC) in Australia and winning three gold medals at the 2017 Pan American club crew championships.
Next up for Team Titanium is the Pan-American club crew championships in Tobago, which will be held in March.
