MTC dragon boat team: bunch of LOSERS

Ok, maybe they were harshly punished in one heat, being disqualified from the race due to an improperly buckled life vest. Maybe, depending on what the rules say and what actually happened.

But to intentionally disrupt another heat full of participants who had trained for the event for months and had nothing whatsoever to do with the prior event, all I can say is :raspberry:

Bunch of cry babies exhibiting bad sportsmanship and giving all foreigners in Taiwan a black eye.

Hopefully they will be punished again. . . if not by the Taiwan authorities by GOD!

[quote]This year’s Taipei International Dragon Boat Championship was gripped by controversy yesterday after a disaffected dragon boat team positioned its canoe in the middle of the race course on Keelung River and then jumped ship to further disrupt the race, participants said.

Pandemonium broke out yesterday morning after the co-ed dragon boat team from National Taiwan Normal University’s Mandarin Training Center (MTC) were demoted from the “winners’ bracket” to that of “losers” because a team member had failed to properly wear his life vest, MTC rower Eric Chou said. . .

Enraged by the mysterious retroactive scoring, the MTC team . . . decided to use its race in the losers’ bracket to send a message to organizers. . .

"We rowed to the middle of the course and stopped, blocking [other teams]," he said.

When a throng of motorboats roared over to tug their canoe ashore, the rowers then jumped ship and “floated around for a little bit,” he said.

The rowers’ main gripe, Chou said, was that organizers offered no explanation for annulling their winners’ bracket placement until after the team’s river plunge.

“They told us only after all this that one of our teammates’ life vests hadn’t been properly buckled on Sunday,” he said. . .[/quote]
taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003365880

I thought the whole day was rather boring, actually. Why no mass races?

I think they already got their punishment in the form of Jilong river pollutants. I’d think twice before diving into that water. :astonished:

Stupid fucking whiny kids. Bunch of arseholes. Let’s hope MTC is barred from competition next year.

I disagree. They weren’t notified that they had been eliminated - they just had their name abruptly whited-out. It wasn’t until after they protested that they were even given an explanation - that one of the team members life jackets was improperly fastened. Gimme a break! That sounds like an invented excuse if I ever heard one.

And the race that was disrupted was, as the paper put it, the “losers race” - they were rowing not to win, but not to be last. Big deal.

I think the organizers owe the MTC team an apology.

[quote=“Maoman”]I disagree. They weren’t notified that they had been eliminated - they just had their name abruptly whited-out. It wasn’t until after they protested that they were even given an explanation - that one of the team members life jackets was improperly fastened. Gimme a break! That sounds like an invented excuse if I ever heard one.

And the race that was disrupted was, as the paper put it, the “losers race” - they were rowing not to win, but not to be last. Big deal.

I think the organizers owe the MTC team an apology.[/quote]

I gotta disagree with you.

They could have protested in other ways, like refusing to participate. The other teams weren’t to blame, but MTC fucked it up for THEM.

Until they did that, I would totally have been on their side, now I agree with what Sandman said.

(That’s not to say that the organisers don’t appear to have done something totally shitty here.)

Ever heard of “the referee’s decision is final?”
Complain, sure, but don’t be a total cunt and fuck it up for everyone else. Stupid whiny kids, nay, mummy’s boy brats. They’d have got a right arse-kicking from me if I’d been in one the boats they screwed with their girl’s blouse blubbering. Tosspots.

Hey Huangy, why not offer to sell them the rights to your signature? They could have it emblazoned on their shirts for next year’s races.

The thing is, they didn’t know what the decision was until after they had protested. Can you imagine calling a penalty on a football team, without telling them what the penalty was and who committed it?

Do you think the incredibly poor judgement by the organizers would have gotten any attention, official or otherwise, if the students hadn’t protested? They were angry that someone could arbitrarily and without explanation move them from the winner’s circle to the loser’s circle. And they didn’t “fuck it up” for everyone else. The competition to win was already over. These guys were battling for the equivalent of a “participant” ribbon. Whoopty-doo. Anyway, the race was restarted, so no harm there either.

Wow. I agree. What a loser thing to do.

“Mum, mum! It’s not FAIR!” :laughing:

Thinking on it though, its pretty unlikely that the judges would just disqualify them for no reason. Probably one of the other teams pointed out the rule infraction – understandably. I’d have done the same.
What are the judges supposed to do then? Let them win even though they broke the rules? Can you imagine the outcry that would cause?

Easy - tell them the reason they were disqualified. Remember, no explanation was offered. It took the protest to get them to admit that it was because of a misbuckled life jacket.

misbuckling a life vest seems like a lame violation. why do they even need to wear a life vest? don’t they all know how to swim? how can you even row effectively wearing a bulky life vest anyway.

Lame or not, its a rule, apparently. If you want to race you should at least make sure you’re following the rules. If you think they’re lame or whatever, you can always decline to participate.
Because if you DON’T follow the rules and end up beating someone, you can be very very sure that the beaten person will use that against you if he finds out.
And if all you can do is whine and moan about it after the fact, you’re going to end up, like the angry little boys and girls of MTC, looking like a right bunch of twats.
They COULD have taken the high ground, retained their self-respect and left the other teams and the officials looking foolish, petty and incompetent. Instead, they kept all those kudos to themselves.
In my humble opinion, of course.

According to a handout I was given while I was there, the penalty for not wearing a life vest was meant to be a 5 second penalty, not disqualification.

Doesn’t sound to me like they were disqualified if they were allowed into the losers race. Could their 5-second penalty have been what lost them the race?

The team in question.

Possibly. I didn’t see the protest they made, but when I arrived their on Monday at about noon, I overheard one of the girls in the team say they’d been disqualified. I didn’t hear why until I saw the TT.

Oh, they’re FOREIGNERS! No-one told me that. No wonder they were disqualified. Can’t have a bunch of damn foreigners beating the pure-blood native sons. Just wouldn’t be cricket.

Some of them were even Canadian.

I don’t know if you’re just being sarcastic or what, but what you said above seems to be true. I agree with Maoman that it sounds like an invented reason.

I think their protest was justified.