KLM Blue Dragons

Blue Dragons

KLM Blue Dragons is a dragonboat racing team consisting of twenty six paddlers all working for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The team was put together for the first time in 1995 to compete in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam, where the KLM Headquarters is located. The first race ended for the Blue Dragons with 18 paddlers swimming to the shore. The next year they took some training before the race and they won the race with the KLM Cityhoppers becoming third. After that the Netherlands was not big enough. Races in China, Japan, Malaisia and Hong Kong were visited by the airline team. In 1999 KLM Blue Dragons became the Netherlands Corporate Dragon Boat Racing Champion. Another good score was the fifth place they picked up in the Stanley Beach dragon boat festival at Hong Kong

Dragon Boat History

The legend of Qu Yuan, the poet/philosopher and his political protest against a corrupt regime remains an important celebration in Chinese culture, and has become a world-wide sporting event. In the fourth century B.C., China was under political and military strife. This era is also known as the Warring States period. Qu Yuan, disgruntled with the ruler and the state of affairs, protested against the regime by jumping into the Mei Lo River. According to legend, local fishermen, upon seeing their beloved poet's act of courage, raced out with their boats in an attempt to save him. To their dismay, they arrived too late. To prevent his body from being eaten by the fish, they beat the waters furiously with their paddles and threw rice dumplings wrapped in silk into the river to distract the fish. The re-enactment of the villagers racing out to save Qu Yuan has become today's dragon boat race festival. Celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, dragon boat racing is not only one of the most important Chinese traditions second to Chinese New Year, but now is an annual event held in over 40 countries. All around the world, people have embraced this water sport and formed dragon boat racing clubs in their own countries.