THE CATOWA

Dashwood, Ontario - September 9, 2003

The Bluewater Tug-of-War team is all set to participate in the European Championships being held this year at the "De Smelt" sports complex in Assen, (a provincial capital city in the Northern part of the Netherlands) on September 18th to 21st, 2003. They will be the first Canadian team to enter a European Championship event and will be participating in the Men's 640K Open Club competition being held on Friday September 19th. According to Matt Metzger, a veteran member of the team, more than 50 teams are expected to be competing in that weight class.

The Bluewater team has been an active participant in international competitions since the mid 1990's when they started to compete with teams from the U.S.A. In May, 1999, they attended an event hosted by the Stans-Oberdorf club in Switzerland and subsequently participated in the world championships in Blackpool, England in 2000 and Pretoria, South Africa in 2002.

Metzger, indicated that after the open club events (open to any participant from around the world), the team will be attending the opening ceremonies on the Friday night and watching the European teams compete on the Saturday and Sunday for the championship events (open to European clubs only). After the closing ceremonies, most of the team are planning to do some sight-seeing in Holland, returning to Canada on Wednesday, September 24th.