A dragon boat race will be held as a demonstration sport at the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics, said Thomas Konietzko, president of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) recently.
Konietzko has credited the inclusion to collaborative efforts between the ICF and China Media Group (CMG), supported by the International Olympic Committee.
At a launch ceremony of CMG's gala celebrating Dragon Boat Festival held in Beijing on Thursday, Konietzko conveyed his best wishes to the Chinese people via video link and celebrated the global popularity of dragon boat race, as well as the upcoming ICF Dragon Boat World Cup and the first International Super Cup of Canoe and Kayak in China.
The ICF Dragon Boat World Cup is scheduled to take place in Zigui County, central China's Hubei Province in October. Zigui is renowned as the birthplace of Qu Yuan (about 340 BC-278 BC), a loyal statesman and a patriotic poet in Chu, which was a major state in the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC). The Dragon Boat Festival is a day to commemorate Qu Yuan. The first International Super Cup of Canoe and Kayak will be held in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, in October.
This year's CMG's dragon boat race will kick off in the city of Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province, during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which runs from June 8 to 10.
As a representative of Chinese culture, the dragon boat race serves as a traditional practice during the Dragon Boat Festival to honor the life and legacy of poet Qu Yuan. This festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar Chinese calendar.
Dragon boat race listed as demonstration sport at Paris Olympics
Agreements signed between China and Kyrgyzstan at the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Bishkek are expected to inject fresh momentum into Kyrgyzstan’s growing technology sector, especially in digital economy, artificial intelligence (AI) and clean energy, an expert said.
The summit, held Monday and Tuesday in the Kyrgyz capital, ran under the theme "25 Years of the SCO: Together Towards Sustainable Peace, Development, and Prosperity" and brought together leaders from more than 20 countries.
In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Chubak Temirov, deputy director of the High Tech Park of the Kyrgyz Republic, said the SCO’s 25 years of trust now pave the way for joint technology ventures beyond Kyrgyzstan’s domestic market.
"The SCO spent 25 years building relationships and trust between our countries, between China and Kyrgyzstan and all other members. And I believe the next stage should be about building things together, in relation to technology; technologies, companies, research, products, and maybe new markets. Today, technology company in Bishkek doesn't necessarily think only about our domestic market, which is only 7.4 million people. We think broader, in relation to all SCO countries, or even global market," Temirov said.
In his meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Kyrgyzstan should work together to build the Belt and Road Joint Laboratory and strengthen cooperation in areas including AI.
Echoing President Xi's words, Temirov identified local-language AI applications as the most immediate opportunity for Kyrgyzstan, while emphasizing that the best form of technology transfer lies in building local capacity to develop future products independently -- a partnership model that could deepen bilateral collaboration following the summit.
"I think the immediate practical opportunities for Kyrgyzstan in AI would be the local language AI. For example, let's imagine just a farmer in rural area, in some remote mountain in Kyrgyzstan, as you know, Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country, could speak to an AI assistant in Kyrgyz language and receive information about weather, maybe agriculture. A student could have an AI tutor, for example, in his own language, in native language. Or a citizen could interact with digital public services, right? Digital public services now, in every country, are becoming a major trend of digitalization. Everyone now, just sitting from home, can get any public service s and get different things to make his life easier, right?" he said.
"China has a big scale from infrastructure and a mature AI ecosystem. The best technology transfer is not when you receive any finished product. As I said, it's when your people gain capability to build already the next product themselves, right? This is the kind of China-Kyrgyzstan technology partnership I would see as a really good example. I truly believe that after this summit, we can go to a new layer of friendship and collaboration. And I see more opportunities between China and Kyrgyzstan in AI in general, and in other technologies," he added.
China, Kyrgyzstan double down on tech innovation at SCO Summit
