Students practicing in agricultural water channel (in Kurume-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture)
Kotaro Yamada
Here in the agricultural water channel in the Kurume-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture, you’ll see young paddlers on canoes practicing almost every day. They are students of Fukuoka Prefectural Mizuma High School and members of the Canoe Club of the school.
The channel of 20 meters wide and 1 kilometer long is calm and very quiet. It’s almost waveless and windless thanks to the bank. “The channel provides perfect conditions for practicing canoe and our students have an advantage in being able to practice almost every day even in the rough weather,” Kazuhiko Tomimatsu, a 43-year-old teacher of the high school and an advisor to the club, explained.
Through repeated practices, the club members naturally become good canoeists, actually good enough to become regular participants in several national tournaments including the Interscholastic Athletic Competitions. This year, the Mizuma High School Canoe Club is sending three paddlers to the 70th National Sports Festival held in Wakayama Prefecture, aiming to win a prize.
This area has a lot of agricultural water channels for rice fields alongside the Chikugo River. Takumi Yatsuhashi, a 15-year-old first-year student, is also going to participate in the National Sports Festival this year. “I want to demonstrate the results of all these hard practices,” he said.
(Sept. 27, 2015)