European League launched
The EDBF has launched for the first time the European Dragon Boat League (EDBL).
With a total of twelve events being nominated as League events, the first race took place in Liverpool / England with the Amathus Dragon Boat Club as the host, winning the event and scoring full points. Second of the event, but only as a non-scoring guest, came the Dutch Dragons. As only international entry for the EDBL to the 21 crew strong event the United Dragons from Alkmaar / Netherlands obtained the second highest score.
Meanwhile the second EDBL race has taken place in Gyor / Hungary.
Unfortunately the results are not reported at the day of writing the article, which is just before the third League Race taking place in Alkmaar on June 9th and 10th, 2007.
The host are the United Dragons, which for sure will try to catch up the score against the Amathus crew who will be coming over from England.
The friendly battle is on, what an excitement and I guess it will be ending up in some kind of party, as may be suspected.
To explain how basically the EDBL works is best copied from the EDBF website:
“Any Dragon Boat Crew based in Europe will be able to enter any of the published
European League Races. Crews may attend as many EDBL Races as they wish but
only their best three (3) points scoring results will count. Of the 3 counting results, at
least one (1) result must be recorded in a Country other than that it which a crew is
domiciled.
Home based crew entries will be allocated at each EDBL Race, as follows:-
Less that five (5) International Crews entered = one (1) Home Crew Entry.
Six (6) to Ten (10) International Crews entered = two (2) Home Crew Entries.
Eleven (11) plus International Crews entered = three (3) Home Crew Entries.
Irrespective of the number of Racing Classes on offer, that is, Senior, Junior, Premier,
the points scoring Racing Class will be the Premier Open class. All crews entered in an
EDBL Race, must therefore record a result in the Open Class to record league points.
A shadow league will be maintained for Senior, Junior and Women’s crews and if six (6)
or more crews in any of these classes have raced in the EDBL, during the season, then
prizes will also be awarded to the winning crews, in each class, at the seasons end.
When more than one Race Distance if offered at a EDBL Race, then the longest
distance raced (up to 500m maximum) will be the points scoring distance.”
(extract copied from: http://www.edbf.com )
The following League Races are still to come:
16. + 17. June in Prague / Czech Republic, contact: www.dragonboat.cz
30. June in Berlin / Germany, contact: www.berlin-citycup.de
30. June + 1. July in Bratilava / Slovak Republic, contact: www.dragonboat.sk
7. + 8. July in Zuerich / Switzerland, contact: www.drachenbootrennen.ch
21. July in London / England, contact: robinfrood@btinternet.com
4. + 5. August in Biel / Switzerland, contact: www.drachenbootrennen.ch
11. + 12. August in Ostroska Nova Ves / Czech Republic, contact: www.dragonboat.cz
25. + 26. August in Trentino / Italy, contact: clasche@tin.it
15. September in Amsterdam / Netherlands, contact: www.ehdc.nl
We will follow the league and come back to you as soon we have further news from the EDBF.
Henning Wiekhorst
Dragon Boat Net
