Bicol farmers, fishers sweep gold in China rowing tourney

By Juan Escandor Jr.
Southern Luzon Bureau

PILI, Camarines Sur–Little more than a year into professional racing, the Camsur [Camarines Sur] Dragon Boat Team (CDBT) bagged its second international cup and stole the scene in the 4th Nanning International Dragon Boat Tournament in China, sweeping the gold in all events.

In the open international competition in Nanning City from June 19-20, part of the celebration of the Chinese National Dragon Boat Month, the CDBT blitzed its way to bag all events of the 500- and 800-meter races — both in the standard category requiring 20 paddlers and the 12-rower dragon boat speed race.

In all, the CDBT — made up of farmers and fishermen from seven towns in Camarines Sur — earned four gold medals and six trophies in the Nanning tournament that made them the overall champion in all events.

The new achievement of CDBT, which is composed of farmers and fishermen from seven towns in Camarines Sur, is a repeat of their top performance in Singapore September last year when, for the first time after seven months in professional competition, the team won all the gold in the international dragon boat competition of Sava Sprints.

Spending most of their time farming or fishing, the members of the 33-man CDBT learned rowing in childhood and honed their rowing techniques in local boat races during the celebration of Bicol’s regional fiesta for the Our Lady of Penafrancia in September.

The opportunity to showcase the homegrown rowers came when the provincial government sent a team of rowers to the invitational Atienza Cup held in Manila Bay in March last year, said Governor Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte, who has provided full support to the dragon boat team program since it started.

Villafuerte said he instructed his staff to recruit rowers from among veterans of the regatta on the Bicol River, where a yearly fluvial procession of the image of Our Lady of Penafrancia is held to cap the regional fiesta.

The Bicol River, the longest meandering river in the region, cuts across Albay province to the two Camarines provinces.

In the Atienza Cup, their first professional race, the team placed third even if the rowers had no proper training and they were used to wooden boats and paddles, said Villafuerte.

After their first race, the team was given the proper equipment and training by the provincial government.

“I was convinced of their performance, that they could compete in the international races as a way of promoting our province and showcasing of our local talents,” added the governor.

The governor said that the second and third times it joined the Manila and Boracay open invitational dragon boat races, the CDBT humbled veterans of dragon boat races in the country by emerging champion.

Foreign teams also participated in the Boracay event.

“They were conspicuously farmers and fishermen, from the tone of their skin to their physical looks, and their being comfortable being barefoot rather than in shoes, so that our team was most often unheralded and underrated at the start of competition,” Villafuerte observed.

He noted that the local rowers developed their unique rowing technique, characterized by short and fast paddling strokes, the opposite of the strokes normally used by dragon boat teams.

Aggie Luque, a Filipina and member of the British team that competed in the Sava Sprints in Singapore last year, described the performance of the CDBT as having “set new standards in dragon boat racing.”

“They were really, really good. All the other teams were really in awe of them,” Luque told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net, in an e-mail describing the CDBT’s performance in Singapore.

Ruben Brazal, team coach, expressed apprehension that other teams they compete with are now adopting their unique short-and-fast-no-let-up stroke technique.

He observed instances during the competition when teams he perceived had adopted the CDBT’s unique strokes gave them a tougher fight.

Brazal said, however, that the team from Camarines Sur still reigned in the long-distance races, owing to the stamina of its rowers.

But Brazal was grateful that the CDBT’s exposure to international dragon boat races also helped them improve their rowing techniques as they learned new ones from other teams.

Ricky Magtoto, team manager, said the CDBT was officially entered in the Nanning tournament as a contingent representing the Philippines and was the favorite since the two-day competition started.

Magtoto said they were not taken seriously at first and that he learned from an interpreter that the welcoming group could not believe they were competitors.

The team manager said the dragon boat competition is a revered sport in China that pays homage and respect to a popular Chinese hero who drowned in a river.

“I was quizzed by a CCTV reporter about what I know of the origins of the dragon boat race, which made me realize how important and big the event was,” he said.

Magtoto said when the races started they easily gained fans who cheered them when they finished first from the trials to the finals.

The team manager said that immediately after every heat, they were hounded by media there. They hogged headlines and were interviewed by CCTV 5, the sports channel of the Chinese network.

In all the heats, the Bicolano farmers and fishermen were the undisputed powerhouse, always two to three boats ahead of the nearest team as they finished the race first.

Brazal said the CDBT clocked 3’’34’57 in the finals of the 800-meter open straight speed race while the second placer, the team from Laos, had a time of 3’’43’43.

Two Chinese teams, the Guangzhu Panyu Lanhemeng Team and Liuzhou City Beijing Team, clinched the third and fourth places respectively, while the Vietnam Team placed fifth.

In sixth place was the Australian Black Dragon Team from Adelaide.

In the 500-meter open straight speed race, the CDBT reached the finish line in 2’’15’09 while second place Guangzhu clocked 2’’21’44.

The other finalists included Vietnam, third place, Nanning Dadi Architectural Ltd. Team, fourth place, and Nanning Xixiangtang District Team that placed fifth.

Brazal said the governor already approved a complete subsidized program that will train second-line rowers for men and women, considering that the present members of the CDBT are in their 30s on the average.

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