The 13th World Dragon Boat Racing Championships ended on Oct 22 in Kunming, Yunnan province, after around 2,800 athletes from over 20 countries took part in five days of competitive racing.

The team from China won 19 golds, 8 silvers, 6 bronze and the Best Nation Cup based on its overall tally.

The team from Canada was the biggest winner of golds with 27 medals, in the Country (Region) Women's Championship and the Country (Region) Senior Grand Championship.

Yin Guochen, vice-director of the China Leisure Sports Administrative Center, says he sees China's good results as the positive effect of national dragon boat races.

"In recent years, we have been organizing races with continually improved competition in cooperation with CCTV. This has helped the China team enhance its strength, and helped elevate dragon boating from a traditional sport to an internationally competitive event."

Wu Guochong, 53, from Foshan city in Guangdong province, has been the coach of the Jiujiang city and Liaocheng University dragon boat teams since 2011.

He began dragon boating at a very young age, and took to dragon boat racing at the age of 17.

Wu says that in recent years the increasing number of local races have helped to promote the sport.

He says that the average age of his team members is about 22, while a large number of them fall in the 18-20 age group.

At the age of 23, Meng Xiangwei from Baicheng in Jilin province, is seen as a veteran of the sport.

A member of the Northeast Dianli University team, he has participated in over 40 different dragon boat events.

Very few people, not even his parents, know that he is a keen competitor.

In fact, Meng, who graduated from university in July this year, didn't even bother looking for a job after he graduated as he wanted to train for the October event.

"I lied, and told them that I was working. I admit that I'm kind of unfilial."

But while Meng pursues his passion, he understands that it is not a sport that will feed him.

Speaking about his passion, he says: "It's a spirit that can't be explained."

The dragon boat bug, however, does not only affect the young.

Susan Berry, 65, from Sydney, Australia, says that many of her teammates from the Australia Senior C group are still working in full-time jobs.

“They train before work, go to work, train after work, and then try to sleep,” she says.

She says that most of the time, they train individually as they live in different places.

But they have found a way to train effectively.

She says that they record the training process via a smartphone app, and then upload the data to let their coach assesses their progress and offer guidance.

Berry says that except for working out in the gym, they all spend around two and a half hours a day in the water, which adds up to 5 km of rowing each week.

Berry says that she remembers the changes her body experienced when she took up rowing six years ago.

After six months of training she lost her runner’s bottom and developed muscles across her sternum and back.

Her teammate Rose Doery from Melbourne, 65, agrees that dragon boating is an enjoyable hobby that benefits the body.

“I think dragon boating is a sport that you can take on as you get older. It increases your strength, causes less damage to your joints. And you can get fit by doing it.”

She says that there are a lot of studies which suggest that people getting older should actually pay more attention to building up their strength and weight-bearing capacity, which helps to maintain the bones.