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Boat race

Amrita TV will be telecasting live the 55th Nehru Trophy Boat Race on August 11.

The Nehru Trophy Boat Race on the Punnamda Lake, near Alappuzha, held on the second Saturday of August every year, is the most competitive and popular of the boat races.

The Race is the greatest team sport on water – often termed as ‘Kuttanad’s Olympics on Water.’

The major attraction of the boat race is the competition of 16 chundanvallams or snake boats measuring over 100 feet in length, with nearly 90 oarsmen in one snake boat.

The first race was an impromptu one conducted in 1952 in honour of Pandit Nehru who visited Alappuzha. After seeing the event, Nehru jumped into the award-winning boat and it proceeded to the boat jetty carrying him. On his return to Delhi, Nehru donated a Trophy, which is a replica of a snake boat placed on a wooden abacus-and subsequently the event came to be known as the Nehru Trophy Boat Race.

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