Black Dragons get world championship opponents

It is official. Ghana will race against USA, Canada and hosts Hungary in the U-24 category of 200 metres, 500m, 1000m and 2000m at the 11th global Dragon Boat championships later this month, SportsInGhana.com can exclusively reveal.

The Black Dragons will also compete in the small boat race of the Premier division against Australia, Chinese Taipei, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Iran, Norway, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Switzerland and Trinidad & Tobago.

Other African countries set to also take part in the world championship along with Ghana are Senegal and South Africa.

Ghana will race at the world event for the first time but paddlers and officials of the national dragon boat team, Black Dragons have sworn to excel following over two months of intense preparations and friendly competitions against some of the best club sides in Ada and the Volta Region.

A 32-member contingent of 25 paddlers and seven officials are set to depart the country by the end of the third week of July for the July 20-30 tournament organized by the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF).

And according to Hon. Rex Daniel Wussah, President of the Ghana Dragon Boat and Rafting Association (GBDRA), Team Ghana are in high spirits and poised for success in Hungary.

“We are confident that we will bring home trophies in the categories we are competing because the boys have been impressive in training and they have raced very good times even sometimes beating world records. We are working very hard to improve more so that we’ll win as much trophies as possible for Ghana,” Hon. Rex Wusssah told www.sportsinghana.com exclusively.

Hon. Wussah, also DCE for Ada, continued: “Our problem is that we have not got much corporate support and even those who have promised something have not come to our aid yet. But that will not affect our focus and we promise to make Ghana proud.”