2008 Concept2 British IRC Reports
In the land of the world's biggest sporting extravaganza of 2008 it is the year of the rat, in the world of indoor rowing and the biggest indoor sporting event it has to be the year of the record. All year long you have been setting new records on an unprecedented scale and this was no more evident than at the 2008 Concept2 British Indoor Rowing Championships where 20 Championship records, 5 British records and 2 World records were broken.The main highlights:
In the last race of the day Hall of Famer and Indoor Rowing legend Graham Benton completely outclassed the field in the Men's Open to set the fastest time of the day - 5:46.1 - to win a record breaking 5th straight title, also claiming the Champion of Champions trophy for an incredible 4th time.Nik Fleming confirmed his new place alongside Graham in the Hall of Fame with a World record 5:57.5 in the 40-44 Hwt category breaking the old record by 0.3 of a second, amazingly he followed this up a few days later by setting a new World record for 10,000m.
David Shepherd, the Championships oldest competitor, destroyed the 85-89 Hwt world record by 21.6 seconds, in setting a fantastic new time of 8:55.9 he also laid his hands on the Noel Frost Millennium Cup.
Paul Siebach from Virginia USA (one of 55 overseas competitors from 14 countries) broke the 50-54 Lwt Championship record by 1.7 seconds with a time of 6:26.3 but agonisingly missed out on the world record by just 0.5 of a second.
Another overseas competitor Seppo Peltola took 8 seconds off the men's 65-69 hwt record in pulling 6:55.3, and the Womens 50-54 Lwt saw Theresa Brockwell, the athlete who travelled the furthest - all the way from Australia!, win gold in a time of 7:28.7. Also racing at the same time were the 60-64 Lwt women, a race that saw Geri Bright set a new British record in a time of 8:17.9.
In the Adaptive events newly crowned Olympic Champion Helene Raynsford retained her title in the arms only category covering 1000m in 4:47.9. The closest races were in the Mens TA Category where both Mark Fosbrook (first) 3:35.1 and Neil Smith (second) 3:39.3 broke the previous record. The boys LTA Category saw the record books rewritten in astonishing style; first home was Aron O'Dowd of Castleconnell BC, Ireland in a time of 3:38.2 a full 32 seconds faster than the previous record set in 2007 by Callum Russell who finished in second place in 3:45.2 with Thomas Walton coming home in 3:54.2 also inside the old record time in third place.
In the Mens75-79 Hwt race both Jim Brownlow (first) 7:32.6 and Bill Payne (Second) 7:39.0 smashed the existing British and championship record of 7:58.4 held by third placed Mike Collier who was just outside it with 7:58.6.
As if it was not enough for the first two competitors to break the BIRC record the the J12 Boys teams managed to bring home the first 4 teams quicker than the previous Championship record. In total 7 records were broken in the junior team events:
- Women's J11 - Sutherland Girls A - 2:22.5
- Women's J12 - Danes Hill Yr 7 Girls - 2:13.5
- Women's J14 - Trentham BC - 2:52.0
- Women's J15 - Nottingham RC - 3:44.2
- Men's J11 - Sutherland Boys A - 2:14.5
- Men's J12 - Danes Hill Yr 7 Boys - 2:00.5
- Men's J15 - Oarsome Foursome - 3:20.0
In the Junior individual events Robyn Armstrong the J11 Championship record holder added the J12 record to her CV with a whopping 554m in just 2 minutes, a distance that would beat all the boys, although Gregory Blanchard would have got close with his new J12 boys record of 552m.
It was definitely a day for the girls as Emily Ford (1099m in 4 Minutes) and Alicia Brown (1409m in 5 minutes) broke the J14 and J15 records respectively. The only dead heat of the day came in the girls J11 race where Alice Jenkins and Emilia Larkin could not be separated covering 446m in 2 minutes.