Plympton-Wyoming honors world junior dragon boat medallists

Megan Johnston, 17, and Katelyn Finch, 16, returned home to Plympton-Wyoming in August with handfuls of medals from the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Thailand.

The Lambton Central Collegiate 12th-graders, two of five Lambton Shores Dragon Boat Club members on the Canadian national junior team at the international event, were congratulated at this week’s Plympton-Wyoming council meeting.

“You make us very proud,” said Coun. Bob Woolvett.

Both young athletes received certificates after showing council one of the special carbon-fibre paddles they used at the event in Thailand where Canada was named overall winner.

“That is fantastic,” Atkinson said the athletes made a presentation to consult about their trip.

“It was like a crazy experience,” Johnston said. “I never thought I would do that.”

Both competed in several races, with Johnston earning four medals and Finch eight.

“The first gold – I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Finch said.

The Canadian junior team also included Lambton Shores club members Jase and Georgia Peters of Forest and Julia Chagnon of Clinton.

They were named to the team earlier this year and traveled to the event in Thailand from July 30 to Aug. 14.

“It was pretty exciting to have five kids go, out of the club,” said coach Cathy Johnson.

The club, formed in 2009 at North Lambton secondary school before Johnson retired as head of physics, remains an active community group that practices on the Ausable River from the Port Franks Marina and competes in several races each season.

The club has sent a total of 21 members to world championship events over the years “from little Lambton Shores,” Johnson said. “It’s pretty good.”

It’s a “vibrant club” with three teams: mixed, ladies and junior, she said.

“We’ve managed to find people who have a passion for paddling,” Johnson said. “Once you have that, it’s really easy to go on from there.”

Dragon boat paddling “involves every muscle for the body,” she said. “It takes a lot of training to learn the technique and to understand the strategy and the tactics behind the race.”

Johnston joined the team in 2019, Finch in 2022.

“I feel very supported,” Johnston said of being part of a dragon boat crew. “There’s so many of us and we all want the same thing.”

Dragon boats race with crews of 20 or 10 paddlers.

Each team member had to raise about $10,000 for travel expenses and gear to attend the world event. During their presentation to council, Johnston and Finch thanked the community for its donations and participation in fundraisers.

They were selected after a three-day tryout in Montreal in May, and practiced three or four days a week before the world event.

They were able to spend time visiting cultural sites in Thailand before the competition began.

“We toured the local market and saw a lot of food there we’d never seen before, like rotisserie crocodile,” Johnston said.

The Canadian team, who also came from Vancouver, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Alta., Stratford, Toronto and Montreal, trained together in Thailand before the start of six days of racing in several categories and distances, including a women’s U18 500-meter race in which all four female paddlers from Lambton Shores won gold medals.

By the end of the event, the Canadian juniors had earned seven gold, 13 silver and one bronze medal, earning them a junior cup and contributing to the Canadian team’s overall win.

The Lambton Shores club’s season runs May to September each year and members range in age from eight to 81, Johnson said.

For more on the club, visit lambtonshoresdragonboatclub.ca.

“We’d love to have people come out and try out our sport,” Johnson said.