The Australian National Dragon Boat Team, known as the Auroras, will be competing against the rest of the world at the 17th IDBF World Dragon Boat Racing Championships (WDBRC) hosted in Brandenburg Germany. It has been 20 years since this Championship was last held in Germany and also falls on the 30th Anniversary for our National Team. The team will be made up of 300 athletes selected from across the whole of Australia, with 61 Junior athletes who will be representing the country in 16U and 18U categories.

Like most international sports, dragon boat is a "pay to participate" sport and AusDBF expects athletes who are selected for WDBRC will incur anything between $8,000 to $10,000 in costs, which includes selection camps, training camps, uniform costs, insurance, entry fees, flights, accommodation, etc. The majority of our Juniors are still in full-time tertiary study and so the burden of financing the costs falls to their families. 

Auroras Juniors have a goal of raising minimum $10,000 to cover the cost of the WDBRC "entry and admin fees" for the Juniors contingent.

Any additional funds raised will go directly towards funding other campaign expenditure, that is divided evenly amongst the athletes, throughout the campaign period. With a contingent of 61 athletes and 4 leadership team members, this will not be a small exercise with rough costs found below for the mandatory expenditure line items required between now and July 2025:

• Training Camp Fees (approx. $750 per athlete) - $45,750
• International Insurance (avg. $150 per athlete) - $9,150
• Leadership Team event travel ($5,500 per leader) - $22,000
• Selection Admin Fee ($350 per athlete) - $21,350
• WDBRC Uniform (avg. $400 per athlete) - $24,400

On behalf of all our Juniors, we wish to thank you for your contribution and the ongoing support of our National Dragon Boat Team.  From the bottom of our hearts, we wish to thank all our coaches, family, friends, and many supporters for their endless support and encouragement in helping us to make our dreams of representing Australia on the world stage, a reality. We hope to do the community, and nation, proud in Germany in July 2025!

One Team, One Heart, One Soul, One Goal