- January 29, 2025
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Hundreds of pink flowers floated through the water at Nathan Benderson Park, carried away from the bank by the stiff breeze that had billowed through for most of the morning.
They had been placed in the water by the hundreds of dragon boat paddlers, all cancer survivors, gathered together at the park Jan. 25 for the Unleash the Dragons: Dragon Boat Festival and Leadership Camp.
Some of the paddlers wept as they placed the roses in the water. Others laughed and embraced their fellow survivors. Many more held back tears.
The flower ceremony was a somber moment during a day of celebration. The ceremony was designed to remember those who had crossed life’s finish line before them. Every paddler who had survived the disease carried with them the memories of those who had not.
The paddlers, who hailed from 99 different teams across 24 states and 13 countries, had come to Nathan Benderson Park three days prior for the start of the program. Unleash the Dragons, presented by the park and Linked in Pinks, a group of breast cancer survivors dedicated to promoting excellence in Dragon Boat racing, was designed to be more than just a series of races.
There are teams around the world of dedicated breast cancer and all cancer survivor Dragon Boat teams, inspired by a movement started over 20 years ago by Canadian sports medicine specialist Dr. Don McKenzie to prove that breast cancer survivors could — and should — exercise.
The sport, previously restricted from breast cancer survivors because of the notion that rigorous upper-body exercise would encourage the spread of lymphedema, has become a soft landing spot for cancer survivors to become active once again.
Unleash the Dragons was designed to foster growth among the international community of cancer survivor dragon boat paddlers, a connection point for those who have found this sport to be a saving grace in their post-diagnosis lives.
Unleash the Dragons began on Jan. 22 with a two-day leadership camp, featuring a lecture from McKenzie. Individual leaders from each home team registered for the leadership training portion, where they could grow their skills both on and off the water.
On Jan. 24, the rest of the participants joined in — the only catch was that the paddlers were purposefully not assigned to their home teams, instead placed on composite crews of new boats, with new team names from paddlers across the world.
This gave the crews a chance to connect with new faces. It also gave team leaders, who had participated in the leadership camp, a chance to practice their skills before the actual race day on Jan. 25 when the newly formed teams competed against each other.
“Every team that you see is a composite team made up of six or seven teams from around the world,” said JoAnn Moore, a Lakewood Ranch resident and founder of Linked in Pinks. “It’s a mixed bag of different skill levels and different languages and backgrounds, so that they have to jell together as a team and operate as a team on the water.”
It was not an easy task for the newly formed crews.
“The first couple of days were definitely challenging,” said Water Warriors steerer Nadia McConnville, who races with Pink Phoenix Dragon Boat Team and the Catch-22 Ospreys out of Portland, Oregon. “We’re from all over the place. We’d never met before this. Every paddler has a different idea of how they paddle at home. Some of the paddlers had never even raced before.”
Moore said that the leadership camp and the purposeful assigning of composite teams is meant to empower future groups of breast cancer and all cancer survivor paddlers.
By bringing in race officials and experienced Dragon Boat coaches from across the world, paddlers can not only learn the skills of leading a team — coaching techniques, off-water management, steering and more — but also go through the motions of actually starting their own team.
On Saturday, 24 teams of 20 paddlers each raced in three divisions, racing in knockout rounds of 500 meters and a final round of 1,000 meter races. The results, however, weren’t the focus. None of the composite teams were ever going to be as competitive as that of the paddlers’ home boats.
It was the stories behind them, of what Dragon Boat racing has done for the paddlers, that mattered the most. There are paddlers like McConnville, who was diagnosed with breast cancer 14 years ago, and has stayed with the sport even as she’s fought through successive surgeries in her post-diagnosis journey.
“Unfortunately, a year after my treatments, I found out that my bones had deteriorated from the chemotherapy and I had to replace my shoulders and hips,” said McConnville. “I couldn’t paddle anymore, so I switched to steering. I’m a bionic steerer.”
Linked in Pinks member Annette Johnson, a breast cancer survivor, credits Dragon Boat racing in changing her outlook on post-diagnosis life. Johnson was introduced to Dragon Boat racing by her physical therapist after developing lymphedema while in remission.
“I like to refer to finding Dragon Boating as the lemonade from my cancer lemons,” said Johnson. “I lost my mother and grandmother to breast cancer. When I was diagnosed, I didn’t have examples of my chapter after diagnosis being positive. After joining my team 12 years ago, I had examples of women who were stronger, fitter versions of themselves after their breast cancer diagnosis.”
There’s a special bond formed among cancer survivor Dragon Boat paddlers, one that can only be forged on the water. It’s a bond that makes it difficult to stay out of the water, according to Susan Balmert, a 75-year-old breast cancer survivor from Akron, Ohio.
“I love the sport,” said Balmert. “I’ve tried to wean myself away from it a couple of times, thinking that I should leave a spot for the young people coming into it, but I keep coming back and they keep welcoming that. So I will be in the boat as long as I can pick up the paddle and keep moving forward with these women.”
