A SLOTH doing fitness tests and impressing national selectors?
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Bathurst's Shona Stewart, proud member of the Sloths Dragon Boating Club, will head to Pattaya in Thailand this August to represent Australia.
She will form part of the senior B (over 50s) crew which will put their skills and fitness to the test at the 14th IDBF World Dragon Boat Championships.
Just earning the right to represent her nation is something that Stewart has had to put an incredible amount of work into and with the championships drawing closer, it will also see her relocate from Bathurst to Sydney.
Her training program not only involves strength work, but four to six water sessions a week.
"The selection process was quite stringent and even the training program, it's the same as the prems have to do," she said.
"Like we had to do a fitness test with all these different benchmarks. You had to do 10 bench presses at 60 percent of body weight, five pull ups, 90 sit-ups in two minutes and an 18 kilogram kettle bell snatch for 110 - so 55 each arm - plus a beep test or a two kay row if you've got bad knees like me.
"Then, if you're good enough in that fitness test you get an offer to go to selection camp, which was in October, you do all the same fitness tests plus a single craft water section plus a dragon boat session in the afternoon and dragon boat the following day.
"I'm in probably the most competitive age group, so I think they took 60 to selection camp. We've got a 20-woman crew."
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Stewart got her first taste of dragon boating in 2012 and a year later, attended the state titles for the first time.
However, she found that her competitive desires were not being fulfilled. It left Stewart with a dilemma - quit or do something which would allow her to further her dragon boating ambitions.
"I was at the point I was going to give up - it was sort of do I give up paddling or do I just try? So I went and had a come and try with a dragon boat club in Sydney called the Sloths," she said.
"I've now finished my third season with Sloths and it's fabulous."
Though Stewart is not exactly sure just what opposition she will face in Thailand and her role within the crew will not be determined until a June training camp, she knows what the goal is.
She would love to stand on the podium while her national coach has targeted the gold medal.
"The way that the Australian coach is making us work, he's got his eyes set on it. The internationals are every two years and the most recent one in my age division, Australian won," she said.
"To do that really annoyed Canada, so apparently Canada is working really hard and will be our main opposition."
Currently 25 nations have put in provisional entries for the titles and they come from across the globe. They include countries such as Iran, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Ukraine, New Zealand and China.
Stewart thanked Pearl Butcher from Pinnacle Dragons and Chris MacCabe from Navigate Personal Training for helping her to reach the national level. The World Dragon Boat Championships will run from August 21-25.
