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The 24th World Indoor Rowing Championship was a bona-fide success. With more competitors than ever, and what looked like a significant increase in the number of spectators, the day was an excellent international festival of rowing, with the four Open titles heading back to four different countries on three different continents.

The fastest Brit of the day was Graham Benton, who retained his 30-39 crown with relative ease. His biggest threat came from Lars Kirsch of Germany, a gold medallist at the Seville world championship in 2002. Getting off with his customary powerful start, Benton was always in control of the race, leading from beginning to end. He finished in 5:53.6 over four seconds ahead of Kirsch in second place, who had to finish strongly in order to hold off Ian Coveny of the United States.

In the Men's 70-74 Lwt race, Geoffrey Knight (left) was finally able to break Herbert Leah's old world record. Having threatened to do so first at the British IRC and then in Amsterdam at the Europeans, his row of 7:13.4 was not only half a second faster than the old mark, but also gave him a comfortable gold medal, cushioned by 34 seconds from second place. Somebody else who has continually threatened to break the World record is Roger Prowse, but once again he was just unable to do so. His time of 6:49.5 was, however, good enough to give him a championship record to go along with his gold. Philip Stubley, meanwhile, was able to celebrate the fact that the World IRC have moved to five year age categories for veteran events by winning a tight 65-69 Lwt race in a time of 7:11.8, exactly a second ahead of Edwin Alderman of the United States. The medal total was further boosted by bronzes for Bill Payne and Denis Melody in the Men's 70-74 Hwt and 80-84 Hwt respectively while another bronze went to Martyn Low in the Men's 55-59 Hwt race; although Martyn was just unable to overtake the US's James Castellan for second place, he did have the satisfaction of holding off the machine's inventor Dick Dreissigacker for the final medal position.

In the Women's 50-54 Hwt race, Anna Bailey managed to exact revenge for her defeat last year by Carrie Graves. Pushed all the way, Anna was forced to dig deep at the end as Graves, rowing on the machine next to her, tried everything she could to hold on to her title. In the end, Anna just had enough in her tank, winning in 7:21.8.

In fact, the Women's veteran events proved to be an exceedingly fruitful source of Gold medals for Britain. Rosemary Armstrong ran out an easy victor in the 60-64 Lwt race, while Josephine Timms and Mavis Surridge won the 70-74 Hwt and 75-79 Lwt races respectively. Shelagh Allen, meanwhile, won the only British silver of the day in the 65-69 Hwt race.

The Men's Open Lwt race was won by Germany's Eric Knittel in a time of 6:08.6 with the European IRC champion Mads Rasmussen second in 6:10.7 and the United States' Peter Ording third with 6:12.3. The UK's Xavier Disley was just outside his target time of 6:30, finishing 29th in a time of 6:30.7.

The Women's Open Lwt turned out to be an epic contest, with old foes Lisa Schlenker of the United States and Juliane Elander of Denmark lined up against each other once again. In a hard- fought race, Lisa, only back in training for two weeks, was just strong enough to hold Juliane off by just six tenths of a second, winning in a time of 7:09.6. Impressively, this time, as well as giving her the Open crown, was also good enough to shatter the existing 40-49 Lwt record, previously held by the UK's Helen Mangan in 7:12.7. Marika Page was just able to sneak the bronze medal from her fellow US countrywoman Elizabeth Peters.

The Women's Open Hwt race turned out to be dominated by the New Zealand contingent. Although the fastest start was by the former European champion Michelle Guerette of the United States, she was soon overtaken by the Evers-Swindell twins, Georgina and Caroline. For the first 600 metres, the twins, Olympic champions together in the double, were locked together side by side, both pulling low 1:39s. By the halfway stage Georgina, the reigning world record holder, had slowly started to wind the pace up a little, and she was showing metres over her sister, who in turn had clear blue water over the rest of the field. Behind Caroline, the other two New Zealanders in the field, Paula Twinning and Fiona Patterson, were jockeying for third spot. With the Evers-Swindells running away with it, the question was whether any of the Americans in the race could catch up with either Twinning or Patterson. Despite the best efforts of Guerette and Caryn Davies, they were unable to prevent a Kiwi clean sweep, Georgina winning in 6:33.2 with her sister second in 6:40.2 and Twinning third 6:43.4, just ahead of a fast-closing Guerette in 6:44.9.

The Men's Open Hwt final also saw a New Zealander in with a chance of gold as George Bridgewater lined up alongside last year's winner Pavel Shurmei of Belorussia (right), Kristaps Bokums from Latvia, the winner of the U23 Hwt race at the European championship and various members of the US National Squad. At the gun it was Bridgewater who got off to a screaming start; although nowhere near as broad as Shurmei or as tall as Bokums, it was clear that he was still able to generate immense amounts of umph.

Slowly, however, the immense power of Shurmei began to tell. The night before the race, Shurmei was saying how he was addicted to the Indoor Rower. "If I don't go on the machine for two days, I feel like an old man". He must have been on the machine recently then, as he was soon gobbling up the metres, the machine rocking from side to side under the stress and with 1300 to go he had eased himself into a comfortable lead. At those speeds, the line approaches pretty fast, and he crashed through in 3.2. Behind him Bridgewater finished in 5:47.6, while Bokums took the bronze in 5:50.0, a couple of seconds ahead of Jason Flickinger, last year's bronze medallist and the leading American.

With a winning margin of over four seconds, it looked like an easy race for the giant Belorussian. Apparently not; his last 500 metres was uncharacteristically ragged and according to the man himself later, he'd never felt as bad after a race as this before. "You expect to feel like this just after a race, but not an hour afterwards." Still, with a second world title under his belt and with Matthias Siejkowski now pushing 40 and Rob Waddell still retired, he could take some comfort in the knowledge that for now, he's most definitely the man to beat. Still, with Bridgewater and Bokums just 22 and 21 respectively, and the likes of Germany's Karsten Brodowski, who rowed 5:52.7 last year at the age of 18, waiting in the wings, there's no chance of him being able to rest on his laurels.

Full results, replays, race analysis and photographs can be found at http//www.concept2.co.uk/wirc

The 2004/05 Grand Prix series ended with a good-sized bang at the Manchester Velodrome on February 13th. With over 400 competitors, it was the biggest race of the series, and there was some appropriately close finishes to match its stature. Fastest man of the day was Stuart Honor in the Men's Open Hwt with 6:12.3, while the fastest woman was Beate Peate, who won the Women's Open Hwt in 7:17.6.

Full results, along with race analysis and replays can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/results.php while a large number of photographs are available at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/photographs.php.

You can find the overall standings at http:///www.concept2.co.uk/gp/standings.php while the series medallists can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/gp/medallists_2005.php.

The Indoor Rowing News loves knowing where we stand in people's estimation. Only this morning somebody complimented us on our driving, having left a note on our windscreen saying "Parking Fine", something that right made our day. Anyway; the ultimate guide to knowing where you stand is the Concept 2 Ranking, the annual compilation of times from all over Britain for all sorts of different age categories and distances. The deadline for entries this year is April 30th and there are a number of different ways to make sure your time is included. Firstly, if you're on the On-Line Ranking and Logbook (http://www.concept2.com/sranking03/) and your nationality is down as British or Irish, your best times from there will be automatically entered. Secondly, you can use an official Ranking Entry Form, available from either http://www.concept2.co.uk/ranking/ or by contacting Concept 2 on 0115 945 5522 or info@concept2.co.uk. Alternatively, all competition times will also be automatically entered into the Ranking, so if you did your 2,000m best at, say, last November's British IRC, there's no need to resubmit that time.

For more on the Ranking, including archived results from the past couple of years go to: http://www.concept2.co.uk/ranking/

Ah, school days. We have nothing but fond memories of our time at Gradgrind Comprehensive. Cross-country in the wind and rain; football in the wind and rain; rugby in the wind and rain with an angry Welshman shouting at us. Great days. Anyway; modern schoolchildren don't even know they're born half the time as more and more schools are starting to use the Indoor Rower. With that in mind, we've recently added a Schools section to our website.

The section gathers together several case studies and projects from around the country showcasing the different ways in which the Indoor Rower is being used, whether in competitions, in lessons or as a fundraising tool. The centrepiece of the section is the Schools Training Guide, now available to download for the first time.

As well as offering detailed information on technique and how to use the Indoor Rower in a safe and constructive fashion, the Guide also covers all aspects of indoor rowing in schools, from how to integrate the rowing machine into different areas of the curriculum, on how to use it to establish competitions and leagues, to detailed lesson plans, to how to raise money using the Indoor Rower and much more.

The Schools section can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/schools/

After being prompted by Sir Steve Redgrave himself, http://www.concept2.co.uk now backs the bid for the Olympics to come to London in 2012. If you haven't taken the time to register your support and you want the greatest sporting extravaganza in the world to visit our shores, make sure you pop along to http://www.london2012.org/en/support/register.

The fourth National Indoor Rowing Marathon Day takes place on Sunday April 17th, 2005, the same day as the London Marathon.

The aim of the day is to get as many people as possible to complete either the 42,195 metre marathon or the 21,097 half marathon on, or around, the 17th. There are also four person team events to have a crack for people who didn't fancy doing it all on their own.

For more information, and an entry form: http://www.concept2.co.uk/marathon/

The second South London Indoor Rowing Championship takes place on Sunday, 27th March at the Sutton Arena Leisure Centre, Middleton Road, Carshalton, Surrey. Fittingly, for one of the last races of the season, the organisers have decided to mix things up a little bit and they'll be running three different events. As well as a 1,000 metre sprint and a 1,000 metre pairs race, they'll also be running what we reckon is the first competitive appearance of a Rower's Bleep Test.

For this, each competitor will be placed into a group determined by their season's best. Competitors must then row at their Target Split/Pace for exactly one minute, then rest for one minute before continuing onto the next level that will be set at an even quicker Target Split. The judgement as to whether the competitor has achieved their target or not will be based on their average split for the minute.

A full explanation of the Bleep Test, along with the targets for each level, can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7006

Entries close on March 14th, with forms available by contacting Phil Morris on 07720 290986 or thepirate@teammorris.fsnet.co.uk.

On Saturday 29th January the rowing squad of Wycliffe Sculling Centre began a 24-hour attempt to set a new Junior Team World Record on the Indoor Rower, raising money for the Tsunami Fund in the process. Between them, fourteen rowers surpassed an initial target of 200 miles and managed to cover a total distance of 203 miles. Each rower took turns to row for ten minutes and then rested and kept hydrated before rowing again.

"The morale and enthusiasm of the team was unshakeable, even in the small hours of Sunday morning", said Wycliffe head coach Adi Dolo, whose team were helped to the record by a steady stream of sandwiches and cakes for energy.

The team of rowers consisted Andy Haines, Fern Cotterill, Hanna Holloway, Will Griffith, Alex Edwards-Smith, Josh Warner, Dom Ashworth, Sam Phipps, Josh Southwell, Steve Buckley, Tom Ball, Louis Kendall, Pippa Turner and Phil Frey.

Deborah Richards: "It was great to see the coverage of the Faroe Islands IRC [Indoor Rowing News #118]! A couple of years ago I went on a walking holiday to these islands, just as they were beginning to open up for tourism! At the end of a very difficult period in my life it was an amazing life enhancing experience! I live in Cornwall - well known for its Gig Rowing competitions - where local and national championships are popular and well supported. International competition is held on the Scilly Isles each summer.

"The trip to the Faroes coincided with preparations for their National Day. On the streets of Torshavn, their tiny but beautiful capital - nearer the size of Newlyn than London - was a beautifully hand built gig, complete with oars and kit. They were very proud to display this boat that would enable them to compete more effectively in the Scillies competition. They were raising money to send their team and were utterly delighted to meet someone who not only knew what a Gig was but who came from Cornwall where they came each year for the championships; it was one of the most memorable exchanges of my travelling life!

"These small remote and harsh islands - whose only common connection with us is through the shipping forecast - have some wonderful traditions, and some best left - like salt dried puffin as a sandwich filling - but their enthusiasm for rowing, and gig rowing especially was fabulous. I think we should welcome them with equal enthusiasm to the world of indoor rowing, I suspect with the long dark winter days (providing lots of practice time), natural aptitude and sheer determination to exist in some of the North Atlantic's harshest conditions will provide quite a challenge to us all!"

Rachael Bussell: "On February 16th 2005, Leeds University Boat Club attempted to break the world record for the U-23's 100,000m indoor row. The time to beat was four hours 39 minutes and 20 seconds set by the Leeds University crew in 2004. The 2005 crew included Ben Attenborough, Kamal Grewal, Luke Forrester, Rupert Prescot, Paul McPherson, James Moorhouse, Gavin Morris, Glenn Nicholson, Mark Pitcher and Rob Wood. The challenge started well, showing that the training had paid off. Each crew member rowed over a 100 times, taking between 10-15 strokes each turn. There was a massive team effort involved including John Hudson as timekeeper.

"Unfortunately, due to pure exhaustion one team member was unable to complete the full 100,000m, resulting in 9 men finishing the final 20,000m. Even with determination from the remaining crew they marginally missed the record and finished the race in four hours 43 minutes and 30 seconds. Leeds University Boat club has a busy regatta season ahead including crews attending the Women's and Men's Head of the River."

Alan Greig: "To raise funds for the DEC Tsunami Appeal, myself and a group of gym members completed marathons on the gym's Indoor Rowers. We've raised over £1,000 with some more still to come in.

"The event was on Saturday 29th January. The venue was the Dollan Aqua Centre Gym in East Kilbrid. Overall, three people completed solo marathons, myself (2:50:18.7), Wendy Greig (3:37:39.0) and Hazel Eunson (3:40:43.0).

"Thanks to all those who took part."

If you've taken part in an event using the Indoor Rower, make sure you send it to us at editor@concept2.co.uk.