This year, on May 13th, the Lions Cup took place again in Venice, a dragon boat race over a distance of 200 meters. In each boat there were 10 paddlers + a helmsman and a drummer.
The University of Venice (Ca Foscari) invited a selected group of universities, including the rowing team of the University of Vienna, to this event. Of course we did not miss this opportunity to show what the students in Vienna are capable of.
Besides the actual competition, a nice cultural program was offered to explore the city of Venice and make friends with the students of our neighboring country. We were also offered an interesting guided tour of the main building of the Universita Ca Foscari, which is rich in history.
On Friday afternoon the team of the University of Vienna started the journey to Venice with the "USI bus". After the long journey, the well-deserved pizza in the evening initiated a successful start into the competition weekend.
For the 8 universities, besides the Italian and the University of Vienna also the University of Gdansk, the 3 preliminary heats were first set by lottery, whereby we already had to fight with strong opponents in our heat with Venice B and Padova.
Due to the natural waves of the Venetian lagoon and the crossing motor boats, all teams had their difficulties during the warm-up. As if this was not enough, little attention was paid to whether the boats were ready at the start or at least started at the same height. The commands and instructions of the referees were only given in Italian, which made it very difficult for our team to follow the instructions.
Suddenly it was "GO" and our team, which was half a length behind the other boats and not in the starting position, found itself in the middle of the race. However, the team had quickly got itself together and, despite the poor starting position, decided to make the best of it; giving up was out of the question. In the course of the race, the Uni Vienna was able to make up for the lost meters and paddled out a large lead over the Venetian B-boat. To pass Padova, however, the 200 meters had not been enough. Thus it became in the preliminary run by hair's breadth only the 2nd place and thus the B-final. The 2nd preliminary heat was dominated by the flagship of the Venetians and the 3rd preliminary heat was won by the University of Insubria.
The B-final was then won by the team of the University of Vienna with a start-finish victory and thus ended the regatta in 4th place in the ranking, but with the second fastest time, just behind Venice A.
A joint trip in dragon boat to the islands of Burano and Torcello was planned for Sunday, which was shortened to a short 10 km trip from Campalto to the Venetian city center due to the rainy weather. Due to the weather, some of the teams decided to
