Bank of China Takes Victory at 3rd Luxembourg Dragon Boat Festival

On Sunday 15 June 2025, the Chinese Cultural Centre of Luxembourg (CCCL) and the Chinese Embassy in Luxembourg organised the third edition of the Luxembourg International Dragon Boat Festival on the Moselle River in Remich.

The event was attended by several dignitaries, including Luxembourg’s Minister for the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, Lex Delles, the Chinese Ambassador to Luxembourg, Hua Ning, and the Mayor of Remich, Jacques Sitz. The dragon boat races were preceded by an opening ceremony on the Remich Esplanade, featuring a traditional Lion dance.

“A dynamic and friendly competition” - this is how Mr Hua described the Dragon Boat Festival in his opening speech, calling Remich “an ideal place to host such an event.” Reflecting on the festival’s origins, he noted that while the tradition dates back nearly 2,000 years in China, it has become a global celebration that unites people from different cultures. He emphasised the values of teamwork and fair competition as central to the sport and as relevant principles for international cooperation. “We need to be friends with each other,” he concluded.

This year’s edition of the Luxembourg International Dragon Boat Festival featured a record fifteen teams, including representatives from major financial institutions, academic bodies and local organisations. Notably, Cargolux entered two separate teams in the competition. The full list of participating teams was as follows: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Cargolux 1, Cargolux 2, HNCA, LUNEX, Confucius Institute at the University of Luxembourg, International Electronics & Engineering SA (IEE), China Everbright Bank, China Construction Bank, China Taiping Insurance + Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, M&G Investments and Badminton Club Junglinster.

Each team in the tournament comprised eighteen members - sixteen rowers and one drummer taking part as contestants, along with one professional from the Dragonboat Club to support coordination and safety on the water, over a course of approximately 250 metres.

“We have a draw - each team draws their ranking, their time and their race time,” Zhang Yong, President of the Luxembourg Euro-Asie Schengen International Group and coordinator of the event, explained to Chronicle.lu. “After the first and second team races, we collect the times and the nine fastest teams go straight to the semifinals.” As Mr Zhang outlined, the semifinals consisted of three races, each featuring three teams. The fastest team from each race then progressed to the final. “Dragon Boat is a third important festival in China. We’re going to try to have this opportunity to celebrate it with Chinese community and with Luxembourg’s friends together,”  he added. 

Before the action started on the water, Minister Delles and Ambassador Hua Ning painted the eye of the dragon in a symbolic opening (the dragon must see the road to victory).

The first qualifying races took place under heavy rain, which lasted for about half an hour in Remich. However, the competition continued uninterrupted. Following the initial heats, teams were allocated into three semi-final races, which began after a lunch break that also featured cultural activities such as folk music and dance performances, as well as kung-fu and Tai Chi demonstrations. The semi-final matchups were as follows:

SF #1:  Cargolux 2, China Merchants Bank and Confucius Institute (w)

SF #2: Bank of China (w), Badminton Club Junglinster and HNCA

SF #3: Cargolux 1 (w), ICBC Bank and LUNEX 

Confucius Institute, Bank of China and Cargolux 1 advanced to the final. LUNEX, the winners of the previous two editions, finished third in their semi-final, meaning a new champion would be crowned this year.

In the final race, the Bank of China team secured a confident victory, finishing ahead of their competitors by approximately a third of a boat length. The captain of the Bank of China team, Hanns Gunther, shared with Chronicle.lu what he considered to be the key to his team’s success: “I’m participating for three years and do everything to contribute to keep a good, strong team spirit, to join all the forces of the team and to make the team work as one team, as one person in harmony.” Reflecting on their performance, he added: “We found after the first race, we improved gradually over the last trainings, we thought that we could get a good result. We were not planning, you cannot plan to win. It depends on a lot of things. You have a good luck, you have the right setting. At the end it was a bit of like, yes, a mixture of the strong will. A bit of good luck and the good training everything together.”

Second and third places were closely contested, but Cargolux 1 edged out their rivals to claim second place - repeating their result from two years ago. The Confucius Institute team finished third, after placing second last year.