ABS-CBN?s Dyan Castillejo reports that the Cobra Philippine Dragon Boat Federation Team has won the gold medal in the 1000 meter event for small boat.
The Filipinos won the initial heat beating back the challenge of powerhouse paddlers from Australia and Italy among others and then paddled their way to gold in the next round of competition beating Hungary who had earlier won the 2000M gold medal..
International Dragon Boat Federation officials who paid f or the Filipino paddlers housing while Philippine Airlines and Cobra met all the other expenses told Castillejo that they couldn?t afford not to have the Philippines in the competition because it would be like not having Brazil in the World Cup of football.
Dyan said Filipinos and Fil-Americans came out to cheer our team and brought a variety of Filipino food for our athletes in another wonderful display of togetherness.
Cobra Energy Drink agency representatives informed us that the event was a last minute addition to the race program but the Cobra-PDBF team was ready to join and won the gold even if this is not really one of their stronger events.
Our 2007 and 2009 world championship titles are in the sprints, 200 m events for men's and mixed but they are really going all out for the Gold!
The private sector as well as the television and print media rallied around the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation Team after they were abandoned by both the Philippine Olympic Committee headed by Jose "Peping" Cojuangco and the Philippine Sports Commission led by chairman Richie Garcia.
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