Chile Dragon Boat Festival

Submitted by Paula Farías.  

We have experienced in Chile a great celebration of companionship, teamwork, respect, humility, generosity, and above all, sisterhood.  The 3rd Dragon Boat Festival was organized by the Fortale-Senos Chile team in alliance with the Confucius Institute of Santo Tomás University and the Embassy of China in Chile.

At the Carén Park lagoon, for the first time, we brought together 300 breast cancer survivors who love this sport and have made it an important part of our lives.

After months of work and organization, we successfully held the 3rd Dragon Boat Festival on October 24, 25, and 26, 2025. The festival featured 11 of the 17 teams that exist in our country, along with a significant group of Latin American teams that enthusiastically wanted to participate, even knowing that the event had a national character.

Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay were present and expressed their desire to participate from the very beginning. We greatly value their involvement and the efforts they made to travel to our country—many for the first time by plane, others arriving by land after nearly a full day of travel. But nothing is impossible when these wonderful women set their minds to it.

The participating Latin American teams were:

1. Argentina en Rosa: made up of the teams BariRosa, Rosas Pink, Dragonas Rosas, Valkirias, Rosas del Mar, Alas de Agua, and Amazonas de Córdoba.

2. Rosa Fénix.

3. Rosas del Plata.

4. Umamuma, Brazil.

5. Canomama, Brazil.

6. Pink Stars Bogotá, Colombia.

7. Golondrinas Rosas del Hum, Uruguay.

The Chilean teams:

1. Dragonas Rosas Iquique

2. Olas de Esperanza, Coquimbo

3. Rosas de Santo Domingo

4. Dragonas de Algarrobo

5. Dragonas por un Lazo

6. Claro de Vida Talca

7. Remadoras Rosas San Pedro de la Paz

8. Valientes La Señoraza Laja

9. Las Rosas del Ruka Pillán

10. Rosas de Los Vientos

11. Fortale-Senos Chile
    

We lived through intense days, starting on Friday with course familiarization and training sessions, ending the morning with an exquisite tasting of Chilean salmon. In the afternoon, we gathered for the official inauguration of the Festival, where we paid tribute to great friends who have been with our team from the beginning and drove its growth: Mabel Toso and Alessandra Rodrigues. We also honored each of the teams through their captains.

Saturday was an intense day, with many heats in which all the Chilean and international teams were able to compete. We also enjoyed a beautiful performance by a Chilean folkloric group that delighted us with our national dance, the cueca.

And on Sunday, the grand celebration of the Festival, filled with Chinese traditions and the national and international finals.

The Festival also welcomed more than 400 guests, including authorities, deputies, senators, mayors, doctors, business leaders, and our families. We enjoyed Chinese traditions, food, and regattas. It was undoubtedly a magical weekend.

These were three days in which we shared not only our passion, but also our life stories after breast cancer—a story we are writing together, one that we make visible not just during the month of October, but throughout the entire year. We are the absolute example that early detection of breast cancer saves lives.