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Dragon Boat Festival "2001" - Proudly Pan-Asian
By Gil Asakawa
August 22, 2001

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It was a storybook ending - Disney could make a movie of this. The team sponsored by the Colorado-Mongolia Project, comprised of Mongolians who had never been on water until just a week before, set the pace throughout the day during the boat races featured at Dragon Boat Festival 2001.

People on shore were jumping up and down in jubilation and disbelief - surely this is what the true spirit of sport is all about!.

The Mongolian team, coming from a landlocked country, paddled around Sloan Lake the week before in canoes to experience being on water for the first time. They had even asked someone if, with their lifejackets on, they should float face down or up.

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The day before the festival, all 16 of the teams practiced with the 40-foot dragon boats brought by the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based American Dragon Boat Association. An ADBA race coordinator patiently tried to teach the Mongolians, assembled in two rows on the grass beside Sloan Lake, how to synchronize their paddling. The result was a motley crew with 40 arms all akimbo waving to individual phantom beats. Each Dragon Boat has 18 paddlers, a drummer to keep time and inspire the rowers, and a flag catcher at the front.

Click image for bigger picture (The infamous race between the Denver Public Safety Department and the Mongolian team)

This was our equivalent of the Jamaican bobsled team going to the Winter Olympics.

Yet, incredibly, as the time trials and heats progressed to whittle the teams down to the final four, the Mongolians defeated each opponent with the fastest times of the day. They became the crowd's - and my - favorites, and would have gone home on a wave of goodwill even if they had lost before the semifinals.

But by the end of the day, and lo and behold, here they were, racing the team of Denver police and firefighters sponsored by the Department of Public Safety in the semifinals.

It was close from the start, and especially at the end. With a lineup of police squad cars cheering on their fellow officers along the shore with their lights flashing and sirens blaring, both teams grabbed the flag at the same instant. The ADBA officials reviewed several video cameras that had been assigned for this circumstance, but after 20 minutes it was too close to call. The teams were given the choice of racing again, or tossing a coin to determine the winner.

Gil Asakawa writes a weekly column of pop culture and politics from a Japanese American perspective. You can reach Gil's website at http://nikkeiview.com.