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Birmingham Indoor Rowing Championship

16th September 2001

Cocks Moors Woods Leisure Centre, Kings Heath, Birmingham

With over 80 entries, the Birmingham IRC provided an excellent opportunity for competitors to gauge their fitness for the forthcoming season. About half of the entries were first time competitors, most of whom seemed sufficiently enthusiastic about the competition to commit themselves to continuing to the British Championships.

The highlight of the afternoons competition was without a doubt, the new world record in the 50-59 Hwt Women's Category. Anna Bailey, in only her second season of Indoor Rowing knocked 7 seconds off the old record, reducing it to 7:09.2. This remarkable achievement was made to look reasonably easy, and there is no doubt that Anna will further revise the record latter on in the season.

Toughest competition on the day was easily the Men's 30-39 Hwt division, with four out of the top five times being posted by competitors in this division. In the final race of the afternoon, Andrew Sansom from Reading prevailed in the last few strokes over Chris Smith from Derby. With Marcus Harvey, posting the third fastest time of the day to win the male 40-49 Hwt category, and only four seconds covering these three, this final race proved typical of the hard fought competitions typical of many of the earlier heats.

Other competitors worthy of note include James Syrotiuk, a member of a Birmingham Swimming Club, from West Hagley in Worcestershire who at 16 years old and in only his first competition posted the impressive time of 6:47.6. Second overall in the women's competition went to Maria Scotland, again in only her first competition. Her time of 8:08.0 was also sufficient to help Cannons Health Club, Northampton to a narrow win in the team competition.