China to soon have Oxbridge-like rowing competitions

President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Zhang Jie at the launch ceremony of the campus rowing canal on Wednesday. [Photo from Sina Weibo]

Chinese universities will soon have their own rowing competitions just like the 162-year-old event between Oxford and Cambridge universities in the United Kingdom.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University held ceremony to mark the opening of a canal on its campus on April 6, becoming the first campus in the country to dip its toes in the water, reported guancha.cn on Wednesday.

The waterway will be used by the varsity and campus rowing society for training and organizing competitions. To attract professional rowers and train more students, the university will work together with the Chinese Rowing Association.

The university said it will invite other prominent universities to take part in the competition.

The canal in Shanghai Jiao Tong University campus is about 800 meters long on natural fresh water river. The institute will start constructing second stage at an appropriate time.

Rowers in action on the canal. [Photo from SinaWeibo]

Shanghai Jiao Tong University is one of the few institutes that have maintained the tradition of rowing as a sport. It has won many awards during domestic and international awards. In 2015, 28 universities from across the world took part in competitions in Huangpu River in Shanghai.

Many prestigious universities around the globe have their own teams as rowing is a traditional Olympic game that requires teamwork and persistence.

University of Oxford competed against University of Cambridge in 1829 for the first time and both teams have raced against each other every year since 1856, except during the Second World War.

In China, the sport has a short history of just a decade when Peking University began competing against Tsinghua University in 1998.