Split-second Upset

The NTU dragon boat team missed the highly-coveted Prime Minister’s Cup by a thin margin at the recent Singapore Dragon Boat Festival.

By David Lam, Sports Editor | Photo: Victor Li Qi

NTU, NUS and SIM come into the final 100m neck to neck in the Prime Minister’s
Cup race during the Singapore Dragon Boat Festival.

So close, yet so far.

The result of months of endless toil boiled down to less than half a second for the NTU dragon boat men’s team at the second and final day of the Singapore Dragon Boat Festival on 18 Aug.

NTU supporters awaited the results nervously after the Prime Minister’s Cup men’s race, the festival’s marquee event — spectators could not tell who won as National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) and NTU were neck and neck at the finishing line.

NTU came in third, just 0.46 seconds behind champions SIM.

The Prime Minister’s Cup is the local equivalent of England’s University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge.

However, NTU had a great start to the race, and was half a boat’s length ahead of the rest after a flying start.

NUS caught up at the halfway point, but it was SIM that closed the gap in the final 100m and clinched the title for the 1000m race.

The NTU women’s team came in last in their event.

The day before, NTU had won the Tertiary Mixed race, clearly beating the other university teams.

NTU Dragon, a team consisting of current students and alumni of the NTU dragon boat team, won two open categories races and one mixed categories race.

Team captain Jonathan Gan, 23, a third-year Nanyang Business School student, felt that the loss was a blemish to an otherwise successful campaign.

He said, “The Prime Minister’s Cup is the race that everyone wants to win, and I guess this loss hurts.”

The NTU team trained daily for months leading up to the competition, alternating between land and water training sessions.

NTU has not won the Prime Minister’s Cup since 2009, when NTU came in as champions in both men’s and women’s events.