The Sudbury Canoe Club is pleased to announce that three members of the Club have been named to the Grand Dragons National Team. They will be competing in the World Dragon Boat Championships to be held in Prague in August 2009. The Men’s National Team coach Stan Machacek, named Dave Arnold and Dan Welch to the team after observing them at four separate national tryout camps and based on their individual placing at National Team time trials. Linda McCosham was named to the women’s National Team by coach Steven Kwok, after participation in tryout camps and individual time trials.

     Arnold is currently a member of the Sudbury Canoe Club’s Team Chiro that won the 2007 National Championship and won two silver medals and one bronze medal at the World Club Crew races held in Malaysia in 2008.  Welch paddles for the Sudbury Canoe Club Dragons and this will be his third stint with the National team. The National coach, Machacek, stated that “Both Arnold and Welch’s strong work ethic, their willingness to learn and, their determination lead them to succeed.”

     McCosham is also a member of the Sudbury Canoe Club Dragons. For McCosham, this will be the second time she paddles with the National team. She was part of the Grand Dragons women’s team that won two gold, two silver and a bronze medal at the World Championships in Australia in 2007. In naming McCosham to the team, the National coach, Kwok stated that “it is McCosham’s technical ability, leadership and individual performance that made her selection an easy task”.