“We are four ordinary young girls. We believe extraordinary [things] can be achieved through one stroke at a time.”
So reads a description on the homepage of Kung Fu Cha-Cha, a female Chinese rowing quartet who just broke several records at the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge (TWAC), a race often referred to as “the world’s toughest row.”
At 8.13am, January 18 (China Standard Time), Liang Mintian, Chen Yuli, Li Xiaobing and Meng Yajie, who are in their early 20s and graduates of Shantou University in eastern Guangdong, came ashore on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, where they were greeted by the Chinese ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda.
Pushing off from the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, off the northern coast of Africa, on December 12, the rowing challenge saw the female crew of Kung Fu Cha-Cha paddle across the Atlantic for 4,800 kilometers, or 2,591 nautical miles, in merely 34 days and 13 hours, arriving 15 days ahead of schedule.
While clinching the title of the women’s race, they have also set four world records, not only becoming the youngest women to accomplish the feat to but also the fastest female team to row the Atlantic, shattering the previous record of 40 days, 8 hours and 26 minutes.
At TWAC, teams are completely unsupported and have to carry their own food and treat their own water with solar paneled desalinators.
Backed by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, who is an immigrant from Shantou and major patron of Shantou University, the team of four became the first Chinese team attending the TWAC when they decided to join the world’s largest ocean rowing race back in March 2017.
Nikki Holter, event coordinator for the TWAC, said Kung Fu Cha-Cha's triumph can serve to catapult ocean rowing into the spotlight – not just in China, but Asia at large as well.
[Images via KFCC, China Daily, ECNS]
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