During the holidays, a water club located in Xixi Wetland, Hangzhou, once again experienced a state of being fully booked.
On the wide waters, many novice paddlers are learning power techniques under the guidance of coach Guan Jingxi. When paddling, the body must be relaxed, and the arms should extend the strength of the body… “Under his guidance, the students gently rowed, and the paddleboard slowly moved forward on the water surface, rippling in circles.
In recent years, paddleboarding has become popular worldwide. Guan Jingxi said in an interview that two or three years ago, paddleboarding was still a very niche sport in China, but it suddenly became popular on social media platforms.
The reason why paddleboarding can become popular is that it is not a high entry barrier for leisure sports, “said Guan Jingxi. Unlike traditional water sports, the biggest charm of paddleboarding is that people of all ages can participate. Its gameplay is not restricted, and it can be done standing, sitting, lying down, or even doing yoga.
At the same time, paddleboards have strong social attributes, with different gameplay, postures, and exercise locations, making the photos highly shareable and allowing enthusiasts to make friendships through communication and sharing experiences.
Zhou Jiahe, a 26 year old Internet practitioner in Hangzhou, spent less than a month from being a new paddler to being able to paddle freely. I saw someone posting pictures on their social media and thought that paddleboarding was very new. So I tried buying equipment to experience it, but I didn’t expect to get into it so quickly. Nowadays, the paddleboarding community she belongs to has more than a thousand members, most of whom are aged between 25 and 30.
As a popular leisure sport, paddleboarding has emerged in many coastal provinces of China in recent years, and various paddleboarding events have also been heating up.
Taking Zhejiang, which has numerous water systems, as an example, in recent years, many places in the province have successively held high-level paddleboarding competitions, such as the 2022 China Paddleboard Open and the first Zhejiang Water Sports Leisure Festival, the 2024 Third National Paddleboard Yoga Championship, etc. At the recently held Fourth Zhejiang Ocean Games, paddleboarding competitions were organized for the first time in the coastal waters of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.
Like marathon, cycling and other events, paddleboarding is not only a competitive journey, but also a visual feast. From urban rivers and lakes to mountain streams and reservoirs, paddleboarding fully showcases the charm of both urban and rural landscapes.
In Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Xixi Wetland, Qingshanhu Reservoir and other places used to be well-known ecotourism attractions for tourists, but now they have become ideal destinations for paddleboarding enthusiasts. In Huzhou, Zhejiang, the Nanxun Ancient Town Paddleboard Open has attracted numerous participants to come and “check in”, bringing new vitality to the water towns of Jiangnan. In Qingtian, Lishui, Zhejiang, a hometown of overseas Chinese, paddle enthusiasts from home and abroad come to compete in paddle yoga and experience the beauty of sports amidst the green mountains and clear waters.
Industry insiders suggest that water sports such as paddleboarding can be deeply integrated with ecotourism, creating diverse social scenarios and launching related services for segmented groups to promote the water economy and drive innovation and upgrading in China’s sports tourism market.
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