Inaugural Race Season Wraps at Oddball Fall Classic
Silver medalists, Inlet Spirit women!
What a way to finish our first season!
The Oddball Fall Classic in Vancouver featuring 200m sprints marked the final race of the season for Inlet Spirit Paddling Society — and the final event of an incredible inaugural year for our team, club and society.
We arrived race-ready, proud to wear our Inlet Spirit colours and excited to put everything we had into one final race day on the water.
Women’s Crew Brings Home Silver
Congratulations to our Women’s crew, who battled their way to the B Division Final and came within just 0.217 seconds of gold!
It was an incredible finish and a great way to close out the season. The crew paddled with determination, stayed focused and gave it everything they had right to the finish line. What a race!
Mixed Crew Fights Through Adversity
Our Mixed crew also had a strong day, earning Lane 3 in the C Division Final after a fantastic semifinal race.
The final didn't quite go the way we had hoped. The Dragon Boat gods weren't with us off the start, putting us behind early. But this crew showed exactly what being a team is all about. We overcame the adversity, stayed together, kept fighting and finished like champs.
That's sport. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose — but as a team, you do it together. You support each other, learn from the hard moments and come back stronger.
Our Mixed crew finished 6th in the C Division Final, but the result doesn't tell the whole story. The determination, teamwork and fight shown throughout the day are what we'll remember.
Our Results
INLET SPIRIT WOMEN
Race 1 – Women’s Qualifier 1
Lane 3 | 3rd place | 1:02.065
Race 16 – Women’s Grand/B Semi 2
Lane 7 | 5th place | 1:03.540
Race 28 – Women’s B Final
Lane 4 | 2nd place | 0:59.596
Final result: Silver in the Women’s B Division Final.
INLET SPIRIT MIXED
Race 9 – Mixed Qualifier 5
Lane 6 | 4th place | 0:57.077
Race 25 – Mixed Grand/B/C/D Semi 4
Lane 8 | 5th place | 0:54.794
Race 35 – Mixed Final C
Lane 3 | 6th place | 0:54.756 – our fastest time of the day!
Our mixed and women’s Oddball crews!
A Huge Thank You
A successful race season takes far more than the paddlers in the boat.
A huge thank you to Coach Denise, whose experience, energy and encouragement have helped guide us through our first season.
Thank you to our fantastic steersperson Jason, and to our drummers Trish, Sandra and Niki, whose contributions helped keep our crews moving together.
And, of course, thank you to every single Inlet Spirit paddler who showed up, trained, raced, encouraged teammates and helped make this inaugural season so special.
Every person has played a part in building this club.
A Year to Be Proud Of
When we started Inlet Spirit, we were building something new.
Now, as we look back on our inaugural season, it's pretty special to see just how much we've accomplished together.
We've raced, trained, celebrated, learned, supported one another and created a community on and off the water. We've experienced the highs of podium finishes and the challenges that come with competition — and through it all, we've continued to have each other's backs.
We wore our Inlet Spirit colours with pride — and we backed them up on the water.
The Oddball Fall Classic may have been our final race of the season, but it's not the end.
Training continues into November, so we'll still be seeing plenty of familiar faces down at the Inlet.
Our first race season is in the books. There's a lot to be proud of — and we're already looking forward to what comes next.
See you on the Inlet!