There will be races at the Olympic park lake (Ao Lin Pi Ke Shui Shang Gong Yuan) on Monday 14 June in the afternoon. It will be the best place to watch the races.

Or, if you want to really experience the festival, come and join the team on Sunday afternoon, 4.30pm at Hou Hai.

The majority of the team arrived early Saturday morning, off an overnight train from Beijing, and filed onto the team bus awaiting us. The rest of Saturday saw us check into the Hai Tian Grand Hotel, fuel up at our 11am lunch, getting the team together for a team meeting, and then heading off into the town of Wuxi for some team bonding.  Mission accomplished with a successful ferris wheel ride, with the requisite cotton candy and ice-creams (thanks Wolfgang!).  The day ended with an early team dinner, followed by Heming, Susan and Li Meng getting the final race details (and choosing lots for the race heats) at the Team Manager meeting.

Dragon Boat at Wxui

Race Day was an early start, out on the water for the first race at 8.30am. The organisers quickly learnt to let us board the boats first, regardless of lane order, to ensure we got to the race start line about the same time as everyone else! The first race saw us facing rougher waters than the team was used to, and bringing together the Beijing and University teams to race together for the first time.

Race Results
500m
Heat – 3:04:19 minutes
Semi Finals – 2:57:75
Finals – 2:40:14
Winning team clocked in a cool 1:56:62!

200m
Heat – 1:08:48
Semi Finals – 1:12:08
Finals – 1:05:78
Winning time 46:02

5000m
Finals – 32:12:78
Winning Time – 22:28:59

Congratulations to the team! And special congratulations to Heming, our fantastic Captain who was also awarded the very prestigious Best Drummer Award.

The team consisted of Heming, Susan, Iris, Joyce, Jen, Anna, Alicia, May, Sharon, Wolfgang, Ottmar, Toby, Toby’s Mum & Dad, Kevin, Gao Xin, Sundi, Li Meng and the great support from Li Meng’s university friends.

Lining up for a race

This was the 5th anniversary of the cross-strait dragon boat race.

Having officially charmed the race officials at the Friday night welcome dinner, the Internationl Dragon Boat Team arrived ready to go Saturday at the fantastic race venue, just minutes from our accommodation.  Crowds were already gathering along the shore, to watch the many races. After many photos, interviews and autographs, we prepared for the first 500m race. We had two great races, where the team achieved great results, ahead of other team! Our official times were:

500m #1 – 2.34.90

500m #2 – 2.36.40

The big race came on Sunday, where the team went out well for the 3000m race. In a field of nine, we were delighted to come in 7th, with a time of 14.49m. This indicates that the team does better over long distances than sprints! NB: Winning time was 11.35m

Congratulations to the race team, consisting of Heming, Joyce, Susan, Thomas C, Thomas J, Jen, Anna, Zoe, Judy, Lesley, Doris, Anthony, Will, Wolfgang, Sundi, Toby’s Ma, Toby’s Ba, Mey, Mey’s Mum, Iris, Alicia, Marita and Andrew.

So far in 2010, we’ve competed in races in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, and have competitions scheduled in June in Xiamen (Fujian province) and Beijing.

Last year, we travelled to Hunan for a competition that took place over Duanwu Jie. We also participated in two different competitions in Beijing, one that took place on Houhai and another in Yuyuantan Park.

In previous years, we’ve participated in competitions in Ningbo, Luoyang and other interesting Chinese destinations. We’ll be figuring out our competition and travel schedule for 2010 in April and May, so stay tuned!

Sunday afternoon practices, which start at 4:30 p.m., are open to people interested in testing the waters to see if they want to join the team, more casual paddlers who just want to row every now and again, and to anybody who wants to spend a fun afternoon rowing on the lake and meeting new people.

Practice consists of drills like practicing race starts, sometimes a bit of friendly competition within our team and a lot of chanting of “jia you!” (others enjoying the lake always get a kick out of our chanting).

After practice on Sundays, team members who can stick around usually grab dinner together at one of the Chinese restaurants nearby.

Get directions for how to get to the boathouse on Houhai for practice.

Swimmers on the banks of Houhai

To join the team or for more information, please contact Heming on polo_heming@163.com to be kept up to date.