IBCPC DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL
The IBCPC Dragon Boat Festival is held every four years under the auspices of the International Breast Cancer Paddler’s Commission. The Festival is an international non-competitive participatory event targeting Breast Cancer Survivors teams who engage in Dragon Boat activities as post-operative rehabilitation. Born from the idea of a Canadian sports medicine physician, Doctor Don McKenzie about twenty years ago, Dragon Boat paddling has become a rehabilitation therapy for tens of thousands of men and women worldwide, who have undergone surgery.
For the first time since its institution in 2005, the IBCPC FESTIVAL will be held in Europe – in Italy!! The Florence 2018 Festival will involve 121 teams from 18 countries , and for the very first time ALL the continents are represented.
Organised and promoted by FIRENZE IN ROSA Onlus as the official Organising Committee, the Florence Festival will be a sporting event but above all a social occasion in which Florence will welcome from 4,000 to 5,000 people from all over the world. The participants are mainly women between the ages of 20 and 80, who will meet to take part in the exciting Dragon Boat races, paddling together on the Arno. They will also be accompanied by their friends and family, their faithful and enthusiastic supporters.
Don’t miss out on being part of this great event and participating in the three days of intense program activity: demonstrations, workshops and social events aimed at awareness and dialogue within the large international community of “Breast Cancer Survivors”, in addition to the dragon boat races we all eagerly look forward to!
THE CASCINE PARK
Situated near the historic city center, the Cascine Park is Florence’s largest public park with an area of about 130 hectares along the Arno River. It is rich in plant life, with vast lawns, walks and paths.
The Cascine Park is the favourite spot to play sports or to relax while enjoying the nature and the quiet of the area.
A BIT OF HISTORY – In the sixteenth century, the Cascine Park was the property of Florentine Dukes Alessandro and Cosimo I de’ Medici, who purchased the land and used it as hunting grounds and a place to farm and breed cattle. In the eighteenth century, the Habsburg-Lorraine Tuscan Grand Duke, Peter Leopold, made the area accessible to the public on special occasions (court festivals, and the Feast of the Ascension). During the same period (1785) the architect Giuseppe Manetti designed and constructed important structures in the Park such as the “Palazzina Reale” and the pyramid-shaped icehouse. Elisa Baciocchi, the sister of Napoleon Bonaparte and Grand Duchess of Tuscany, transformed the Cascine into a public park between 1807 and 1815, making the vast green area available to the entire the city. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Florentine architect Giuseppe Poggi planned a huge square (the current Piazza Vittorio Veneto), originally intended to be the entrance to the park. The “Scuola di Guerra Aerea”, built in 1938 by Raffaello Fagnoni, is the last and the most important architectural structure created in the Park.
FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
Where: Palazzo Vecchio (Piazza Signoria) – Sala d’Arme (behind the statue of the Neptune)
Where: Cascine Park
Where: Palazzo Vecchio (Piazza Signoria) – Sala d’Arme (behind the statue of the Neptune)
Where: Cascine Park
Where: Cascine Park
Where: Palazzo Vecchio (Piazza Signoria) – Sala d’Arme (behind the statue of the Neptune)
Where: Cascine Park
Where: Palazzo Vecchio – Salone dei Cinquecento
Times: welcome coffee 8.00 am – 9.00 am at Palazzo Vecchio – Sala d’Arme
Registration: 8.00 am- 9.00 am Salone dei Cinquecento
Congress: 9.00 am – 11.00 am
Where: Cascine Park
Where: Palazzo Vecchio (Piazza Signoria) – Sala d’Arme (behind the statue of the Neptune)
Where: Palazzo Vecchio – Sala degli Otto
Where: Auditorium al Duomo, Via de’ Cerretani, 54/R
During the meeting all team managers will receive the race program.
Meeting time: Piazza Pitti at 5 p.m.
Starting time from Piazza Pitti: 5.30 p.m.
Arrival at Piazza Signoria around 6.30 p.m.
Where: Piazza Signoria
Where: Cascine Park
Lunch tent open from noon to 3 p.m.
1st round of heats start marshaling by 8 a.m.
2nd round of heats start marshaling by 2.30 p.m.
Supporters races will close the morning
Where: Cascine Park
Lunch tent open from noon to 3 p.m.
3rd round of heats start, marshaling by 8.00 a.m.
Final round start marshaling by 3.15 p.m.
TRANSPORT TO/FROM THE RACE VILLAGE
The Festival will provide transfers to take you from predetermined meeting points in town. We apologize, due to some work in progress in the city’s roads, we can not indicate the meeting points. Of course we will give all information by the month of June.
IBCPC Congress
Friday July 6, 2018
9:00 am to 11:00 am
Palazzo Vecchio, Salone dei Cinquecento
Piazzale della Signoria, 1 – Florence
A PREVIEW OF THE EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
of the 2018 IBCPC Participatory Dragon Boat Festival, Florence – Italy
THROUGH ONLINE PURCHASE YOU WILL BENEFIT OF SPECIAL REDUCED PRICES
