PNU (Pusan National University) Sports Science team’s Dragon Boat Overturned during Competition

The Sport of Dragon Boating

PNU (Pusan National University) Sports Science team’s Dragon Boat Overturned during Competition

 

In 2008, there was the 1^st Dragon Boat Competition at the Yachting Center in Pusan. There were almost 30 teams participating from each university in Pusan. Most of the team members’ majors are related to sports.

I was attending Pusan National University, and majored in sports science. I participated with friends with the same major in this competition.

At that time, we had no idea what the Dragon Boat Competition was because it was very new for Korea. The competition was held to introduce dragon boats to people by the government. They simply introduced and taught about the dragon boats, and gave opportunities to practice for one day.

Furthermore, they also offered an expert cox for each team. The cox is the most important person in dragon boat racing because it is not that easy to control the boat and hard to learn it. However, I was working as a cox for water rafting for a year at that time, and my friends encouraged me to be a cox for our dragon boat. Eventually, I did cox, and we were way better than the other teams during practice. We were filled with ambition and enthusiasm.

We thought we are going to win at this moment ....

In game day, we were so excited to be racing because we had confidence to win. They even have price money for the winner. Our team was the only team have cox, not an expert one. At the start whistle, our boat go ahead. Number 3 boat is our boat!

However, we crusted with the other boat and eventually the boat turned over. A lot of people were watching it and it was really ashamed and embarrassed moment. And it was even more shameful when we read the news article about our boat and completion.

Even though, it lost the competition, we had so much fun and made unforgettable memory together.
Go PNU Sports Science!