The 2026 Chengdu Open Rowing Regatta is set to kick off on Oct 1 in Xinjin district of Chengdu, Sichuan province, drawing 35 teams from home and abroad.

 

The two-day event, to be held in the Xinjin urban section of the Nanhe River, is divided into university and open categories.

 

The university group will include six international teams—Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom, Princeton and Stanford in the United States, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and McGill University in Canada—and six Chinese university teams, including Peking University and Tsinghua University.

 

 

This group will feature a mixed eight coxswain 800-meter straight-course race, along with a newly added 3.3-kilometer pursuit race requiring rowers to manage speed, endurance, and strategy on a route over four times longer than the traditional distance.

 

 

In the open group, 23 teams from rowing clubs, school societies, enterprises, and hobbyists will compete in the men's and women's quadruple sculls over an 800-meter straight course.

 

Preliminaries for both groups will be held on Oct 1, with finals on Oct 2.

 

 

As the event falls during the National Day holiday, a range of supporting cultural tourism and consumption promotion activities will also be staged, the organizers said. Visitors can try paddleboarding and kayaking, browse a riverside market for specialty goods, and enjoy street performances. A nighttime show will also take place on floating platforms on the river, featuring water ski stunts, Sichuan opera fire-spitting, and fireball performances.

 

Edited by Zhang Yuanlin

Source: chinadaily.com.cn