Dubai Festival City holds a Dragon Boat competition for UAE residents and visitors. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00You
00:30Oh
01:00This is the fifth year we've had this festival and it's grown each and every year. At this particular venue the maximum is about a thousand participants because of some logistical challenges.
01:15So this year we have generally every year we have a thousand participants. We have a category for schools, a category for universities, a category for social teams, a category for corporate teams, a category for women, a category for men, and a category for premier teams.
01:29Those are the teams that train really hard for these competitions and international competitions. I think this is a great place for dragon boating.
01:36Annually we have about five to six thousand participants in our festival. We have a variety of festivals throughout the year and it just grows every year.
01:45We do have international teams that do visit us from time to time. The Iranians come over quite frequently. We have teams from Singapore and Hong Kong sometimes come.
01:54International teams are always welcome. So hopefully one day we'll host some major international competitions.
02:01Most of our teams here that competed here today, many of those travel to significant international competitions.
02:07In fact, usually what happens is once we finish this particular season, in the summertime most of our teams go away and do their international competitions.
02:14This year we'll be sending several teams to the world championships.
02:18I'm Michael Malincon. I'm from Abu Dhabi Mar, Abu Dhabi Mar Shipyard, based in Abu Dhabi.
02:23We've been here for almost three years and I've joined the group since October 2010.
02:30Up to that time, until now, we are dominating the Corporate Cup 200 for seven consecutive champions and we're working on the mix and open.
02:41We're all Filipino guys paddling on Abu Dhabi Mar. We're practicing three times a week after our work.
02:50After this one, we're working hard because we're competing in Hong Kong hopefully by this July.
02:59Peace!