The 17th Qu Yuan Cup National Dragon Boat Championships was held on September 27 at the Gongshu section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

The 17th Qu Yuan Cup National Dragon Boat Championships was held on September 27 at the Gongshu section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Tens of thousands watched the event, held in the Grand Canal for the first time.

Twenty-one teams of all over China took part, with nearly 600 competitors from Guangdong, Jiangxi, Shandong, Jiangsu and Fujian provinces, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The “Car Paint” Dragon boat team from Guangdong’s Yatu won the men’s 200 meter and 500 meter races. The Nankai Dragon Boat team won the women’s 200 and 500 meter races. The boys’ 200 and 500 meters races were both won by the Jiujiang Middle School dragon boat team, while the Tianyi dragon boat team from Nanjing Health School triumphed in the girls’ 200 and 500 meter races.

Ye Ming, vice secretary of the Hangzhou Communist Party Commission, was on hand to announce the opening of the championships and Zhang Faqiang, president of the International Dragon Boat Federation, fired the shot to launch the first race. Other attendees included Wang Jixin, vice-director of the Hangzhou Standing Committee of the People’s Congress and Zhao Guangyu, vice-president of the Hangzhou People's Political Consultative Conference.

Held annually since 1940, the event was organized by the Leisure Sports Administrative Center of the State General Administration of Sports, China Dragon Boat Association, Hangzhou People’s Government and Zhejiang Sports Bureau. Hangzhou Publicity Department, Comprehensive Protection office of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Hangzhou Travel Bureau, Hangzhou Sports Bureau and Gongshu district government all hosted the event.

The teams with the most outstanding results will qualify to represent China in the 2010 Club Crew World Championship held by the International Dragon Boat Federation in Macau from July 28-31, 2010.

The dragon boat event was held originally to honor the Chinese poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC-278 BC) of the Warring States Period.

Chinese poet Qu Yuan

Qu Yuan was a minister in the government of the state of Chu, descended of nobility and a champion of political loyalty and truth eager to maintain the Chu state's sovereignty. Qu Yuan advocated a policy of alliance with the other kingdoms of the period against the hegemonic state of Qin, which threatened to dominate them all.

The Chu king, however, fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered Qu Yuan, and banished his most loyal counselor. It is said that Qu Yuan returned first to his family's home town. In his exile, he spent much of this time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while traveling the countryside, producing some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature while expressing his fervent love for his state and his deepest concern for its future.

According to legend, his anxiety brought him to an increasingly troubled state of health; during his depression, he would often take walks near a certain well, during which he would look upon his reflection in the water and be his own person, thin and gaunt. In the legend, this well became known as the "Face Reflection Well." Today on a hillside in Xiangluping in Hubei province's Zigui, there is a well which is considered to be the original well from the time of Qu Yuan.

In 278 BC, learning of the capture of his country's capital, Ying, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin, Qu Yuan is said to have written the lengthy poem of lamentation called "Lament for Ying" and later to have waded into the Miluo river in today's Hunan Province holding a great rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era.

He committed suicide by drowning himself in a river because he was disgusted by the corruption of the Chu government. The local people, knowing him to be a good man, decided to throw food into the river to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu Yuan’s body. They also sat on long, narrow paddle boats called dragon boats, and tried to scare the fish away by the thundering sound of drums aboard the boat and the fierce looking carved dragon head on the boat's prow.