Issue #154, 20 March 2007

»  World Indoor Rowing Championship
»  National Junior Indoor Rowing Championship
»  Cartoon By Rog
»  Tel's Tales #1
»  Great Wall of China
»  Where's The Erg?
»  British Rowathlon Series
»  Pimp My Erg
»  Reader's Letters: Andrew Gray
»  Reader's Letters: Lee Hinchcliffe
»  Cornish IRC
»  Upcoming Races And Events

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The 26th World Indoor Rowing Championship took place on February 25th in Boston and the British team flew back across the Atlantic with seven golds, four silvers and three bronzes to declare.

Tracey Axten, Anna Bailey and Mavis Surridge all retained their title from last year in winning the Women's 40-44 Hwt, 55-59 Hwt and 75-79 Lwt events respectively. Special mention must go to Tracey Axten, who keeps on rolling back the years, winning this year in 6:56.5, over two seconds quicker than her time from last year. Christina Nugent Lee's return to the indoor rowing scene continued to reap rewards as she won the 40-49 Lwt race in a time of 7:29.5.

Holding up the men's side of things, Brian Bailey, one of the nicest men on the circuit, just failed to beat his own 60-64 Lwt World record, winning in a time of 6:50.9, while Roy Brook added the World title to his European crown in winning the Men's 55-59 Lwt in 6:43.1. Boston seems to bring the best out of Nik Fleming, and he was involved in yet another great race in the Men's 30-39 Hwt event. Racing against former Boat Race athlete Toby Ayer, current US international Sloan Duross and South Africa's Pieter Engelbrecht, Fleming ground out a fantastic win, just holding off the last two in a thrilling and noisy final 500m.

The race of the day for most indoor rowing aficionados was the Men's Open Lwt race. This featured an incredibly intriguing field. As well as four-time World champion Filippo Mannucci from Italy, there was a troika of Danes. There was Mads Rasmussen, lightweight double World Champion and who was hoping to go around 6:05 and Esklid Ebbesen, the 30-39 Lwt world record holder, holder of eight Olympic and world gold medals and, most impressively, runner-up in the Danish version of Strictly Come Dancing. The one who was attracting most of the pre-race betting, however, was Henrik Stephansen (right), "the phenom". Still only 18, Stephansen was also hoping to take the occasion to break his own J18 world record. At the start, Stephansen went off at a fearful rate, hitting 69 spm and not dropping below 50 spm for at least the first 150m. In fact, so powerful was his start, that his machine bucked forward across the race arena and he would have ended up in the crowd if it weren't for the intervention of the Danish manager. At 500 metres, Stephansen had his nose in front and all the experience and gold medals of his rivals were not able to bridge the gap, despite a phenomenal last 400 metres by Mads Rasmussen that was rowed at sub-1:30 pace. Stephansen won in 6:06.6, just a tenth outside his world record, while Manucci split Rasmussen and Ebbesen to take the bronze, Rasmussen's silver coming in 6:07.6 and Manucci's bronze in 6:09.4.

If you want to see what a future legend of the sport looks like, go to http://www.quistmedia.dk/roklub/crash-b07/crash-b_sprints_2007.html which features all of Stephansen's race.

Juliane Elander made it a Danish double in the Open Lwt events, winning her first World Open Lwt gold in a time of 7:06.9 after taking bronze and silver in the previous two years. Behind her Katrien Hautvast of the Netherlands was just able to hold off America's Gretchen Horner-Wright by nine-tenths of a second to take the silver in 7:09.0.

In the Women's Open Hwt, Canada's Anna-Marie Dezwager had a relatively easy time in winning gold in a time of 6:43.9, meaning that another Open class silver went back to Holland as Jenny Van Dobben De Bruin came second in 6:49.3, with Jenny Barnes of the US rounding out the medal places with 6:51.3.

The Men's Open race saw the return of Mark Flickinger and Wyatt Allen from the US National Squad, who finished second and fourth last year respectively. Lined up against them were Anton Grassl, the European champion from Slovakia, Allar Raja from Estonia and Matt Hughes, also from the US National Squad. In a close race, Flickinger was always just that little to quick for Allen and a fast finish meant he won by just over a second in 5:46.6. Allen was second in 5:47.5, while international canoeist Grassl finished third in 5:52.8.

For full results go to http://www.concept2.co.uk/wirc/results.php, Photographs can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/wirc/photographs_2007.php while short videos for each race are at http://www.concept2.co.uk/wirc/video.php

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The National Junior Indoor Rowing Championship takes place on 28th March at the Hammersmith and Fulham Town Hall. As well as individual events for Years 7 to Years 13, there are also two different team relays: a sprint relay over 2,000m and a Boat Race relay, run over The Boat Race distance of 6,780m. With entries having surpassed what the organisers had hoped for, this event has already established itself as one of the biggest days on the indoor rowing calendar.

There are free championship T-shirts for all competitors, and even the coaches get to go home with a free shirt! As well as bronze, silver and gold medals for all category winners there will also be some Concept2 Indoor Rowers to win on the day as well as a prize that money just can't buy - following the Isis versus Goldie race and The Oxford versus Cambridge Boat Race in a launch on the Thames on the 7th April.

More information on the event can be found on the website at http://www.londonyouthrowing.com. Entry lists and a race timetable will be available on there from Thursday.

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Tel's Tales is the question and answer column written by three-time Olympic rowing coach Terry O'Neill. If you've got a question for Tel, send it to terryo@concept2.co.uk.

James Coote: "I have started to hear more about peak power and how an athlete's peak power is related to their speed over a 2,000m race. I have read that if an athlete wants to pull six minutes they need to hold approximately 475 watts for the six minutes, but if this is greater than about 55% of their Peak Power over ten seconds they will not be able to hold it. Any thoughts on how true this is and if so, how to train it?"

Terry O'Neill: The link between peak power and 2,000m performance is not clear although there is a link. As a general rule, athletes who are able to generate very high power over seven strokes (the standard peak power test) row at a lower percentage of their peak power than those athletes that are not able to generate such high power levels. Lightweights row at a higher percentage of their peak power than heavyweights, but no lightweight has rowed under six minutes for 2,000. This indicates a link but no hard or fast rules.

One of the reasons for this is to generate high power the fast twitch fibre ratio would be high, and in muscle where there is a high percentage of fast twitch fibres these muscles tire quickly. So athletes can achieve endurance performance in two ways: utilising slow twitch fibres, which are very efficient aerobically, these would be considered as endurance athletes. Athletes capable of high power, when doing 2,000m, get through it by muscle fibre recruitment. Because the load is relatively low in comparison to their peak power, fewer fibres are needed to overcome the task and as they tire different fibres are recruited and by this fibre rotation an endurance performance is achieved.

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Two leisure centres in Rhondda Cynon Taf, South Wales have just completed 6.4 million metres on an Indoor Rower. The distance, which is the length of the Great Wall of China or 4000 miles, was finished first by Tonyrefail Leisure Centre in 81 days, closely followed by their sister site Llantrisant Leisure Centre in 82 days. The top rower for Tonyrefail, "Sledge" as he is affectionately known, completed 826,673 metres in 59 gym sessions, averaging 14,011 metres per workout. Mark Howells of Tonyrefail completed 100,000m in eight hours 50 minutes making him the winner of the furthest distance rowed in one session, with Michael Iles, of Llantrisant rowing 43,026m in one session.

A variety of members gave it a go, including GP referral clients, juniors, OAPs, and fitness enthusiasts alike, with the youngest being 14 years old and the oldest being 70+.

The event was dreamt up and implemented by Zenith Health & Fitness managers, James and Kevin Russell and Duty Manager Alan Gregory, and was designed to encourage member interaction and motivate them to train over the festive period.

Their next planned event, which will also include many metres on an Indoor Rower, will be a pole-to-pole event over 12,000,000 metres that will take place later on this year.

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Last newsletter we asked you to send in shots of your Indoor Rower in an exotic or different location. The following is from World 50-54 Lwt world champion Joan Van Blom of the United Sates:

Joan Van Blom: "Here are photographs of my favourite 'indoor rowing' spots, Carpinteria and Long Beach, California. The one inside photo is my normal rowing spot, the new erg room of the Long Beach Rowing Association, which looks out on the Olympic rowing course from the 1932 Olympics.

"The photo with the three of us all rowing, shows (L to R) Helen Frykman, Joan Van Blom, and Grace Malacrida."

Send your stories and photographs to editor@concept2.co.uk.

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Entry forms are now available for the British Rowathlon series, which this year sees some significant changes. Rowathlons are similar to a triathlon except that the first 'swimming leg' is replaced by a stint on the Indoor Rower and they're therefore obviously loads better. The series is made up of the following races:

More on the Rowathlon can now be found at: http://www.concept2.co.uk/rowathlon/.

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Mark Payne: "It’s not in an exotic location, but my Concept2 Indoor Rower has been fully pimped. A 17" TFT takes the place of the PM3 and I usually have RowPro on there. The webcam runs either 'picture in picture' or full screen and can show my poor technique in almost real time. Alternatively I can watch and listen to TV while I row. There’s also a subwoofer just out of shot.

"My wife keeps saying something about 'all the gear no idea'. She just doesn’t understand indoor rowing."

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Peter Beaumont: "I have a bunch of juniors that I am coaching who range in age and size from J13 to J18 and I want to weight adjust their erg scores. Are there any formulas that you are aware of that are suitable for juniors?"

Terry O'Neill: We have a weight correction factor, although it is for adults. The problem with kids is they mature at different rates and size is not a reliable indicator of maturation. With the age group you are dealing with many are going through puberty and this will have a far greater effect on their performance than their size.

With a group like this, you are only interested in their relative condition and so you would be better off assessing them over several different activities for which you award points and then add all the points up to give an individual score.

So for example, on the erg do a four-minute test (basic aerobic condition). The person that covers the greatest distance is 100% and gets 100 points and everyone else's metres covered is worked out in percentage terms of this distance and represents the points gained.

The same thing can be done for

- A 5,000m run timed in seconds (endurance)
- Standing long jump measured in cms (explosive power)
- One minute pull ups total (upper body strength)
- One minute sit ups total (core strength)

Five exercises will give you a maximum of 500 points to give you a relative standing amongst the group.

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Andrew Gray: "I have had a Concept2 for nine years or so and use it as part of my overall programme of fitness. However as I am only 53kg and 5'2", I have never looked at ranking data as I am so far off the mass of regular folk. Does anyone have a formula for 47-year old ex-coxes like me so that we can weigh up our performance and see how we would compete? I typically do 2,000m in 8:40."

What you need is the "2,000m Correction Factors" page on our website at http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/correction.php. This contains both our weight adjustment factor and an age adjustment table. Plugging your details in there gives you a crude guide to being able to compare relative performances. Your time of 8:40 then gives a weight and age adjusted time of 7:40.2.

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Lee Hinchcliffe: "Being a regular reader of the newsletter I thought I'd write to let you know about a recent sponsored row my daughter did this month: it's great to see the erg being used at school and she'd be chuffed if she made it into print!

"As a pupil of Hatherden School in Hampshire, my daughter, Niamh Hinchclife (aged 8) challenged herself to take on a 10,000m sponsored row to be completed over seven days. As part of an ongoing series of projects to raise money for a school in Kariandusi, Kenya, Niamh raised £82 to go towards a term target of £400. This small sum will ensure that a pupil of Kariandusi will be able to attend a secondary school and make a better life for themselves. Niamh completed the challenge in style - taking only five rowing sessions and managing to squeeze it into a week full of swimming, netball and cycling!"

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The tenth annual Cornish Indoor Rowing Championships was held at Phoenix Leisure Centre, Launceston, on Sunday 11th March. The event, sponsored by DS Smith was the most successful yet, with an excellent turnout and an unprecedented two world records falling. The men's 60+ Lwt world champion Brian Bailey set a world record time of 6:42.5 while Anna Bailey broke the Women's 55+ Hwt record in 7:25.2.

Local entries were strong with Lifton's Lindsey Robinson winning the ladies event and her husband Nick placing well in the men's event. Launceston's Rob Tratt also placed well in the open event.

The scope of the event was widened this year with the addition of a 500-metre sprint event, organised by Newquay rower Tommy Gee and sponsored by the Glendorgal Hotel.

Full results can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/result.php?race=cornishirc2007

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If you've got an event you'd like adding to the Event Calendar, the full version of which can be seen at http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/calendar.php, then e-mail editor@concept2.co.uk.

Name: National Junior Indoor Rowing Championship
Date: 28/03/07
Venue: Hammersmith Town Hall, London
Distance: Junior distances, 2,0000m Sprint Relay, 6780m Boat Race Relay
Organiser: London Youth Rowing
T: (0207) 511 2211
E: info@londonyouthrowing.com
W: www.londonyouthrowing.com/njirc_home.htm

Name: Basingstoke Two and a Half Indoor Rowing Championship
Date: 31/03/07
Venue: Basingstoke Sports Centre RG21 7LE
Distance: 2,500m and 300m
Organiser: Dougie Lawson
T: 01256 329042
E: rowing@darkside-internet.co.uk
W: www.darkside-internet.homelinux.org/~rowing/

Name: Mallory Park Rowathlon
Date: 07/05/07
Venue: Mallory Park
Distance: Row 2.5k, Bike 20k, Run 5k
Organiser: Will Whitmore
E: will@dbmax.co.uk
W: www.concept2.co.uk/rowathlon

Name: Bowood Rowathlon
Date: 19/05/07
Venue: Bowood
Distance: Row 4k, Bike 25k, Run 8k
Organiser: Will Whitmore
E: will@dbmax.co.uk
W: www.concept2.co.uk/rowathlon

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