It’s the final weekend of August, and what better way to end summer than to sail into September on a dragon boat.
The Regina Dragon Boat Festival has been a tradition for paddlers, residents and visitors from across Canada since 1992, and now Regina gets ready to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
“Were really looking forward to this year,” Barry Eisenzimmer, president of the Dragon Boat Festival said. “The numbers are down a little bit but that was to be expected and hopefully we can carry on and do a good show this year.”
This year’s is the first event since 2019, due to COVID pandemic restrictions. Fewer teams were able to attend, with some members getting COVID-19 just days before the festival started. Eisenzimmer said this is just another piece of the ups and downs the festival has experienced in its 30-year history.
“The sport has grown immensely in the last 30 years,” he said. “When they started out the dragon boat festival here in 1992, they had 12 teams. Pretty much the same as what we have now, (but it also) grew to a little over 100 teams.”
Eisenzimmer hopes with a successful weekend, it brings racers and fans of the sport back for a long time coming.
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“We are trying to get new paddling programs out there,” he said. “It’s an evolving sport and it takes time and a little bit of encouragement and hopefully we can do that this year.”
The festival will host a variety of races all weekend long.
“We’ve got 200-metre sprints, and all the qualifying heats are done Friday night and the final is Saturday morning,” Eisenzimmer explained. “Then all day Saturday we have 500-metre heats and the final later in the day. And the final event will be the 2000-metre.
On top of the water events, there will also be a number of other activities including beer gardens, live music, a trade market, cultural entertainment and children’s activities.
The festival runs Aug. 26-28 and activities will take place around Pine Island at Wascana Lake.
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