News from Germany

We made history! For the first time ever, a BCP category was added to the 17th IDBF World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Brandenburg an der Havel! We can‘t thank our IBCPC president Meri Gibson and Ute Becker-Frenzel, the president of the German Dragonboat Federation (Deutscher Drachenbootverband) enough for making a pink dream come true!

BCP Team Germany was formed joining paddlers from across the country, who met in Hannover, Wolfsburg and Berlin-Grünau for training camps to prepare for this historic breast cancer paddling event and welcomed breast cancer paddlers from around the world to the rather small town of Brandenburg. Luckily, Berlin, Potsdam, Magdeburg as bigger cities are not too far from the Beetzsee race area, so all our breast cancer paddling guests found places to stay and to visit…

During the opening ceremony and parade, the breast cancer teams could show their presence before the dragons were awakened on Monday night to „let the games begin“.

8 standard boats from Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, USA and the IBCPC 2026 Organizing Team originating from France competed in 4 distances – the 2000 m pursuit race as well as timed races (1000m, 500 m and 200m) with Canada, New Zealand and USA sharing the medals but all paddlers sharing the fun!

In the smallboat competition, 7 more teams from Canada, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Serbia, Sweden and USA collected memories during the 2000 m, 500 m and 200 m races. Heavy rains and thunderstorms were finally beat by some beautiful sunny days and a perfect night for the closing party where some final shirt and pin swaps took place while pink friendships were deepened even more! Germany says thank you to each and every one of the paddlers, helms, drummers, coaches and supporters for making this event unforgettable!

Let´s hope there is a future for breast cancer paddling on the international stage – and prepare for the 18th IDBF Championships in Hong Kong in 2027! The pictures show all standard boat as well as all smallboat crews and BCP Team Germany with the Championship Dragon.