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Dragon boat racing is an amateur water sport which has its origins in an ancient folk ritual held over the past 2,000 years in southern China. However, it started in Hong Kong in 1976, and has emerged as an international sport. Its popularity has prompted the government of the People's Republic of China to add added this festival along with Qingming and Mid-Autumn festivals to the schedule of national holidays observed in China. When it started nearly four decades ago, it was a fishermen's boat race involving nine local and one Japanese team but it has grown rapidly since. This year's race involved 6,000 paddlers, including 1,000 overseas paddlers, 36 international teams from 11 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, Mainland China, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The 65 races were held in many venues simultaneously with a total of 267 teams participating in this massive event. An Indian team was quite a novelty. A veteran Chinese racer and captain of Paddlewans team Shirley Law says that in the ten years that she has been participating, she had never come across an Indian participant or team.
A key member of the all-Indian team Yosha Gupta says the idea germinated when a group of them realised that Indians were conspicuous by their absence. The captain and driving spirit of the team, Stuti Jain adds, "When I mooted the idea, I thought it would be difficult to find a team of Indians but we had a superb response and had 20 people within the first week. I and another person were the only people who had any experience of rowing. We had to learn the technique from scratch and make sure everyone coordinated." The team members got themselves battle ready in less than three months with one training session every week. Ankita Singla shifted to Hong Kong two years ago and was smitten by the spectacle and energy of the races. When she learnt about an Indian team, she felt she just had to participate. Her husband Ankur Jain jokes, "When I realised that she would be gone all weekend to practice, I decided I might as well join in." The festival has its origins in a folk legend. A Chinese court official named Qu Yuan was known for his loyalty to his state at a time when several kingdoms in Central China were fighting each other for supremacy. In 278 B.C., he was so distraught at the abysmal state of affairs that he is said to have waded into a river holding a great rock in order to commit ritual suicide to protest against the corruption of the era. When people heard of this, they rushed out in their fishing boats to the middle of the river and desperately tried to save Qu Yuan but they couldn't. They beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles in order to keep the fish and evil spirits from his body. In commemoration of Qu Yuan, it is said people hold dragon boat races annually on the day of his death. In its modern avatar, this traditional Chinese festival has taken on an international carnival-like feel in Hong Kong. Several corporate houses sponsor teams for the event.
For the debuting Indian team, there were some anxieties in the first race. Yosha Gupta says, "We were quite clueless in the first warm-up race. Everyone was screaming directions and there was distraction and noise from the drums of other boats, we were quite confused." Another team member, Meenakshi, adds that they were nervous the first time but it was a big adrenaline rush once they got going. Another paddler, Wendy Tang, who has been taking part since three years, says it is quite physically challenging but that is not the hardest part. "Commitment to training is the key. One has to devote time which is the hard part, as all of us are not professionals and there are no incentives like cash prizes," she adds. Modern dragon boat racing is organised at an international level by the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF). Although it is not officially considered a sport by the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF), festival racing is quite competitive. There are also some very long endurance events, such as the Three Gorges Dam Rally along the Yangtze River in China, which covers up to 100 km and the Ord River marathon in Australia which covers over 50 km. This Indian team is still a long way off from these marathon dragon boat races. Yosha Gupta says they weren't really looking at where they stood in the tally this time. "This is the first team we formed so it was more about getting the technique and timing right. We will start worrying about where we stand compared to others from next year." But there is no doubt they have planted an Indian flag in Hong Kong's waters in this very Chinese festival sport.
Passing on the baton TOP sportspersons rarely bother to use their skills at talent-spotting and grooming, once they are done with their international careers. But there some exceptions — people who look beyond their own comforts for the pure cause of sports and want to give something back to the game which brought them such glory. These rare exceptions, who are actively nurturing future champions, include athletics greats Gurbachan Singh Randhawa and P. T. Usha, badminton stars Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand and Vimal Kumar, tennis ace Nandan Bal and shooter Gurbir Singh Sandhu, all Olympians and role models.
Most former sports stars either prefer to retire to the comforts of a television commentary box, or get involved in the lucrative business of sports administration. But there is a rare breed of former international players who find their true calling in guiding and grooming young talent, despite having the option of leading life at a easy pace as is the wont of retired persons. Those who plunge into grassroots-level training do that because of their inner urge to pass on their knowledge, expertise and experience to the talented youngsters so that their path to success would be much more smother than that of these ex-champions. Gurbir Singh Sandhu could have retired to a comfortable life after he was done with his international shooting career. For, by then, he had ensured that his two sons had made it big in shooting and golf, respectively. It was his dream to see his elder son Manavjit Singh represent the county in the Olympics, like him, and win the Arjuna Award. After leaving competitive shooting, Gurbir dabbled in sports administration, and made a mark there too. He was the chairman of the Affiliation and Disputes Commission of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), then he became the president of the Netball Federation of India and later the president of the Punjab Shooting Association. Now, looking back, he feels that nothing was as fulfilling as his present assignment as director of sports at the Genesis Global School in Greater Noida, which has over 30 acres of international-class sports facilities, catering to 21 sports disciplines. He says why India is not producing true-blue world champions as the it should and could was because talented young players get spotted quite late, and the inadequacy in their grooming due to the lack of facilities and top class coaches, severely hampers their growth. Gurbir is now a strong votary for making sports a part of the school curriculum, as quality will emerge only from quantity. "Give the school kids the right kind of facilities, and we can create a mass sports culture where we can easily produce champions in various disciplines," says Gurbir. He feels that if players like Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh could make their mark at the world and Olympic arena, it was because they were lucky to get the right kind of facilities, right grooming and right coaches. Gurbir said his sole focus now was to scout for young talent, giving them the right kind of training under expert coaches as he has set a target for his wards to represent the country in the 2018 Asian Games and the 2020 Olympic Games, and bring laurels. He said for the young to be motivated, it was essential to expose them to the experiences of champions, how they conquered odds and hurdles to make it big. "Manavjit was initiated into shooting at a very young age, and Karanjit followed suit. And that was why they could make an impact in their chosen field. I spared no effort to give them the best-possible training and coaching facilities available, but it was nothing compared to the faclities my students are getting now", said Gurbir, emphasising the need to have a "catch'em young" policy. The Director-General of Sports Authority of India, Jiji Thomson, had echoed similar views recently when he said that though SAI's brief was to train elite athletes for international events, the premier sports training institution seemed to have completely forgotten the concept of "catch'em young". Thomson said the SAI would be launching talent-hunt programmes in schools soon to spot future champions and also emphasised the need to make sports a part of the school curriculum. Flying Sikh Milkha Singh, too, had voiced a similar opinion recently at the launch of a talent-spotting programme, when he said that the young players, picked up for grooming at an early age, should be given the best of facilities to help them realise their true potential. This could be done only if they were provided with world-class facilities and result-oriented coaches - the kind of efforts Gurbir has been making for the past couple of years, with a great degree of success.
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THE Dragon Boat Race Festival in Hong Kong is the Chinese equivalent of the colourful Kerala snake boat races. Hundreds of teams participate in this annual event and paddle to the beating of drums kept at the head of the canoe like boat whose front end is rigged with a decorative dragon head. Teams from Britain and Australia have been participating in it for a long time but for the first time an all-Indian team participated in this race this year. The 20 young Indian men and women were called, Dragon heart Indians.
