During the First World Dragon Boat Competition in 2022 (Fuzhou Venue) that only just concluded, Wenzhou University Dragon Boat Team achieved new record high by winning two silver and two bronze medals with their great unity and effortful hard work. Minyuan Zhu, the chief coach of the team, convinced China General Administration of Sports to lead the National Training Camp Team to compete in the event and won three gold and five silver medals. The drummer of the National Women’s Dragon Boat Team is Pei’ai Jia, a year-2018 undergraduate student from the School of Sports and Health in Wenzhou University.

The Wenzhou University Dragon Boat Team is led by Coach Yaona Yu from the School of Sports and Health. The team is comprised of 28 undergraduate and graduate students from the School of Sports and Health. What’s particularly worth mentioning is that our Tibetan player Jiali Gongjue Ese from Naqu County, Tibet, acted as steersman of the Men’s team and demonstrated high level of competence.

As a new dragon boat event at top level, the very first World Dragon Boat Competition offers events at professional group level, open group level (including international group), and university group level. The events include 200m and 500m straight-lane racing competition, which will include preliminary heats and final competition. There were 48 teams and over 1500 players took part in the competition. The teams are comprised of a large number of famous stars that not only include professional teams such as National Training Camp Dragon Boat Team and professional Women’s and Men’s team of Fujian Province, as well as international teams from Russia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. This event is held under the guidance of International Canoe Federation and International Dragon Boat Association, and with the assistance from China Canoe Association, Sports Bureau of Fujian Province, and People’s Government of Fuzhou City.

It was the first time that Wenzhou University Dragon Boat Team has participated in world level competition independently and they made historic success by winning two silver and two bronze medals, making great contribution to the development and team building of Wenzhou University. In face of strong rivals including “Dual First-class” university and host-Fuzhou University, and another “Dual First-class” and professional dragon boat team-Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wenzhou University Dragon Boat team overcame the difficulty during the pandemic in preparing for the competition. They showed no fear and demonstrated strong confidence in competing against powerful rivalries and vividly highlighted the dragon boat spirit of “striking the oars hard and fight the current with great unity”. 

First established in March 2016, the aquatic team of Wenzhou University successfully held the unveiling ceremony at the dragon boat training base in Wenzhou University on 27 June of the same year. The aquatic training mainly focuses on dragon boat but also covers kayaking, rowing and Sup. Under the leadership of coaches Minyuan Zhu and Yaona Yu, our men’s and women’s team players from each department and school of the university fought hard for one glory after another and achieved outstanding excellence in academic performance and sports competitions. This year a large number of our gold medal contestants have been successfully accepted by 985 universities. Moreover, they have also achieved remarkable results in a number of national and world events including China Dragon Boat Race and National University Canoeing Championship.