How this team made dragon boat racing possible for amputees, stroke survivors

SINGAPORE: Every Saturday afternoon, quadruple amputee and para-athlete Tan Whee Boon manoeuvres carefully into a dragon boat as volunteers on either side steady the hull.

A customised seat supports his body, while straps secure him in place. His oar is fitted with an attachment designed to work without hands, and a volunteer paddles beside him as a coach counts out strokes.

It is a setup that reflects how much must go right for the 60-year-old to be there — and not only him but a team of more than 30 dragon boat paddlers with significant physical impairments.

“The first thought that came to me was, this is going to be so dangerous,” said Isaac Tan, a physiotherapist overseeing their safety.

Dragon boat racing demands coordination, power and balance. Paddlers sit inches apart in a long, unstable vessel, using their legs and their core to drive their movements while moving in close synchrony.

Falling into the water is a risk even for experienced athletes, making the sport especially challenging for people who have lost limbs or who live with neurological impairments.

That is precisely what drew Tan Whee Boon to the sport.

Over the years, he had tried activities like wheelchair rugby and scuba diving. But dragon boat stood out as the “biggest challenge” he wanted to take on, because the sport had never been adapted for people with disabilities like his.

He began asking practical questions. How would he sit securely in the boat? And how would he paddle?

Those questions later shaped the Alita Initiative, a non-profit group he co-founded in 2019 to make dragon boat accessible to persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Singapore.

The group’s name comes from the film, Alita: Battle Angel, in which a cyborg is rebuilt and enabled to thrive