Team spirit rules the day

What say you on the issue below?

THE StarMetro all-female team, Steamboat, finished sixth in one of the Malaysia International Challenge Trophy Women’s heats. Unfortunately, there were only six teams in the heat.

With only four training sessions, the team was not too shabby as we managed to finish close on the tail of the fifth-placed team.

We had signed up for the beginner’s category, which we were told would be held on a Sunday. However, just three days before the festival, we were informed that it will be held on Friday.

We were later slotted for the “friendship race”, until we were told that it was not a race but an opening gambit.

Going for it: StarMetro’s Steamboat preparing for a spirited race.

The organisers later told us that we could not enter the beginner’s race as it was for 22-crew boats and we were only a 12-crew team.

We finally settled for the Women’s category and it was daunting to hear that we would be racing against more experienced teams.

But our initial plan was to have fun and we intended to stick to it.

On race day, we discovered that we would be rowing a 22-crew boat, not the 12-crew boat we had been training in.

As we rowed to the starting point, we realised, this was it and my heart was pounding as we waited for the signal to start.

Despite the beautiful scenery at the Putrajaya lake, all we could think of was the race.

Suddenly we heard our coxswain (who steers the boat) mutter under his breath as he saw that our boat had veered to one side and my heart skipped a beat.

“This is not good,” I thought.

The boat swayed due to the choppy waters but we managed to straighten things out eventually.

The air horn sounded and off we went!

We chanted “one, two, three, one, two,...” and tried to row as fast as we could. As we crossed the finish line, a wave of relief washed over us

It was an experience and we achieved our goals of rowing in a straight line, not capsizing and, most importantly, finishing the race.

Despite having covered the race for the past two years, I gained a different perspective this time as I was also a participant.

I could relate to the joy of the winning teams and the enthusiasm of the supporters.

It was heartening when a participant from another team said to me, “Let’s cheer for each other.