THERE was a magnificent brace of second place finishes in their respective finals for Worcester Dragons and Dragonflies in the 500m British Dragon Boat Association National Cup competition in Nottingham.

The first day of the two-day event brought the introduction of the new race distance of 200m instead of the traditional 250m, favouring brute force rather than finesse in an all-out sprint.

Both crews qualified for finals in cup and plate competitions and in the mixed division, but failed to win a medal.

Splits between second and fifth places were fractions of a second with the mixed performance a real bonus given the limited focus on this prior to the event.

Challenge

The 1000m championship saw both home crews rise to the challenge for only the second time in recent years.

With a more settled race plan, the crews set times good enough to qualify for major and minor finals.

New members in the Dragonflies crew rose to the challenge of the two races with little time to recover and improved on their heat time in the final.

The Dragons were just caught on the line, securing a fine third place behind Amathus and Batchworth.

Day two started early for the mixed crew with four 500m races in quick succession. Once again they made the major final but missed out on the medals by a fraction of a second.

The open racing in the afternoon was marred by a second clash in the programme between the two crews leaving the premier crew to repechage with pool boat and helm.

Despite having the heaviest and oldest boat at the event, the crew secured their place in the major final and held Thames all the way to the line, gaining fast on Batchworth, to secure second place in a season's best time.

Dragonflies bounced back from the handicap of the programme clash to just miss taking the minor plate final by 0.7 seconds, but it was enough for second in the overall plate competition.

The premier Dragons crew was among only a few crews to include juniors in their boat. James Rawlings, Matt Collier, Luke Bennett and Kyle Roberts, who paddled for the Dragonflies and drummed for the Dragons, all made significant contributions to their results.