Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung.
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The Festival is the Capital City’s large-scale cultural event in early 2018. This is the first time a dragon boat race festival has been held in the West Lake. Participating teams raced in two boat classes: standard dragon boat and traditional dragon boat. Each boat class includes men's, women's, and mixed boats, raced on a 600-meter-long lane on the water.
In addition to racing, the festival also hosted various art activities (Cheo traditional singing, drum show) and marching on the water, bringing an exciting festive atmosphere to the event. Thousands of the Capital’s people and visitors were present at the festival to watch the boat race as well as to enjoy the special traditional art performances.
The introduction of dragon boat rowing as the cultural activity opening a new lunar year helped restore and develop the nation’s traditional sports, creating a hotspot to attract visitors to the capital Hanoi as well as building momentum for water sports development, according to the Director General of Vietnam Airlines Dương Trí Thanh.
Hanoi hosts the boat racing festival for the first time.
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“We expect that this festival becomes a playground for those who are passionate about traditional sports to have more opportunities to compete, and for the capital’s people as well as visitors to be able to find the traditional festive atmosphere right in the heart of a bustling, modern city,” Thanh emphasized.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports To Van Dong affirmed that if the festival was successful and well received by the public, the city could turn it into an annual event and extend invitation to teams in the ASEAN region.
The festival was held on the West Lake, from Tran Quoc Pagoda (Thanh Nien street) to Ly Tu Trong Flower Garden, with a 600m course, from 10am to 3pm on February 24, 2018 (the 9th day of the Lunar New Year) and open free for visitors.
