Preston Chu

“I started dragon boat back in high school because I felt weak and wanted to challenge myself by getting more in shape. My friend dragged me out to practice one day and it was a really hard practice, but I'm not the type that likes to quit or give up, so I continued and the sport just grew on me.

My favorite memory is actually from last year when I went with Riverside Surging Dragons to a race in Tempe, Arizona. That race was probably the pinnacle of all the training we had done all year. In our college division final, we finished in 3rd, which was the highest our team has ever gotten in our history as a team. After the race, all the seniors on the team and me were crying because we started this team at the bottom of all college teams around us; we started as a bottom-tier team and grew it for 3 years until we got 3rd in this race, showing all of our progress and how far we had come.”

[Preston Chu (San Francisco, CA, USA), paddler and captain on UC-Riverside Surging Dragons, and paddler on San Francisco Dragon Warriors.]

016