Yichang to host its first Dragon Boat World Cup

By Ma Yuhan, Yichang International Communication Studio

Yichang will host its first Dragon Boat World Cup at the national dragon boat training base on Xujiachong Harbor in Zigui County between June 19 and 23.

The 2023 ICF Dragon Boat World Cup will welcome athletes from four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and America.

In 2023, the Dragon Boat Festival falls on June 22. The activity from which the Festival takes its name, dragon boating has ancient Chinese origins, dating back more than 2,000 years.

Chinese people began to hold races on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar to show respect to the dragon and avert floods and droughts.

Dragon boating took on further prominence following the death of Qu Yuan, one of China’s most famous poets and patriots born in Yichang, in 278 BC.

Hearing that Qu had ended his life by jumping into the Miluo River, local people were distraught. They paddled out in boats to try to save the poet or at least recover his body. They threw sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (called zongzi) into the water to lure fish away from eating his body.

Since then, the Dragon Boat Festival has been held every year to commemorate Qu’s unyielding spirit. The dragon boats symbolize the race to try and save Qu.