Going virtual for the second year, the 2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships saw nearly 800 athletes from 66 countries competing. They qualified from around the globe through either one of 19 sanctioned events or individual qualification.

When the pandemic forced the 2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships, originally scheduled to take place in Hamburg, Germany, to go virtual again, it meant finalists would have to race live from their bedrooms, balconies, bathrooms, kitchens and gyms on Concept2 indoor rowing machines. The two days of racing saw world records falling across a variety of distances and age groups as well as para-rowing and team events.

The open men’s 2000m was one of the highlight events and the race saw last year’s indoor champion Ward Lemmelijn of Belgium come out on top again. Lemmelijn trailed Russia’s Alexander Vyazovkin for the majority of the race, and in an epic sprint to the line overtook him just before the finish, to the delight of his supporters in Belgium. He fell just short of the magic sub 5:40 mark when he finished in a time of 5:41.7, ahead of Vyazovkin with Joel Naukkarinen of Finland in third.

For the open women’s 2000m Kirsten Kline of the United States had a blistering start over Zhang Peixin of China. Then Peixin, the 2019 World Rowing Junior Champion in the Women’s Eight, took the lead and never looked back. She was racing alongside Chinese rowing teammates Lv Yang and Xu Xingye, and in front of the trio managed to secure a 1-2- 3 for China. Kline, the reigning world champion who was injured a couple of weeks before the WRICH, had to settle for fourth place.

Friday, the open men’s 500 m category saw current world record holder Phil Clapp of Great Britain securing a third consecutive gold medal in this event. Clapp scored a time of 1:11.6 and held off a late surge from Cameron Wharram from Canada. Anton Grassl from Slovakia finished third – and managed to get a gold medal half an hour later in the Masters 40-49 Category. Grassl repeated his performance Saturday when he secured another gold medal in the same age group, over 2000m this time.

The best performer of the Championships was undeniably Spain’s Javier Reja Munoz. Reja Munoz competed in canoe at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and finished a close fourth at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. He broke a first world record Friday in the PR1 Men 2000m in a time of 7:23.2, and repeated his performance Saturday with another world record in the 500m – with another supersonic time of 1:38.4. In the same race yesterday, Milan Lackovic of Slovakia and Matthew Houser of the USA also broke world records in the Men’s PR3 and Men’s PR3-II 500m.

Alida Kingswood won the hearts of the global audience when she set a new world record in the masters women’s 90-94-year-old 2000 metre category. Canada’s Kingswood broke the record by finishing in a time of 10:29.3 – smashing the previous world record by more than two minutes.

The live racing meant that the rowers had to fit in with a variety of time zones. Racing started Friday at 12 noon CET (which was midnight in New Zealand and 3 am in California) and Saturday at 11 AM CET, and was streamed live on www.worldrowing.com. Each rower was videoed racing from wherever they were in the world. These individual races were then linked through a virtual studio with commentators calling the races: from Camilla Hadland and Martin Cross in Great Britain, to Shane Farmer and Aquil Abdullah in California.

Each athlete was connected to a screen where they could see how they were doing against their competitors. This timing and results software was produced and operated by race
management company Time Team of the Netherlands. World Rowing Productions of Munich, Germany brought all of the elements together to create the live stream broadcast.

Rewatch the racing here. Complete results here.

Dublin oarsman Nathan O’Reilly of London Rowing Club has broken 7 Irish 30-39 LM Indoor Rowing Records in 7 Days and raised £4,350 for UK and Irish Health charities.

The attempts were broadcast live on Youtube to 3,000 viewers through the week. The 30-minute record went first, followed without incident by The Hour and 10k. The 5k came down to the wire, the dream being kept alive by a last-gasp 150m rate 50 sprint for the line.

Check out this 5k Sprint Finish Clip that picks up for the last 150 metres

“It was a horrible piece. Horrible from the first stroke and I’d all but given up with 1k to go. The guys in the comments never gave up so credit to them"

The 4 minute was straightforward leaving just the Marathon on Sunday.

“I’d found it fairly easy to sit around rate 29 1:48 split for the half so I thought from there it’s not too far to 1:46 [Marathon World Record] but I was very wrong.” – O’Reilly finished on 1:50.2 for the Marathon, a New Irish Record to complete the 7 in 7 and under the British Record but not quite the World Record.

The total raised for the charities stands at £4,350.

Nathan's Indoor Rowing Record Times

#Rowing: Eoghan O’Connor of Castleconnell came agonisingly close to a remarkable feat at the Irish Provinces Indoor Rowing Championships at the University of Limerick today. The Castleconnell man missed setting a time of six minutes for the 2,000 metres by just one tenth of a second. Cathal Cummins of Lee Valley set a fine time of six minutes 30.5 seconds in the under-18 grade.

Jess O’Keeffe of University of Limerick won the women’s open grade in 7:20.1, but Margaret Cremen of Lee was the fastest woman, with an excellent time of 7:15.2.

Irish Provinces Indoor Rowing Championships, University of Limerick

Men

Open: E O’Connor 6:00.1. Lightweight Open: D O’Connor 6:30.5. Under-23: G Patterson 6:18.9. Lightweight Under-23: B McKeon 6:42.9. Jun 18: C Cummins 6:20.5. Jun 16: R Tummon 6:31.8. 30-39: R Corcoran 6:30.8.

Women

Open: J O’Keeffe 7:20.1. Under-23: H O’Sullivan 7:21.8. Lightweight Under-23: E McGiff 7:43.3. Jun 18: M Cremen 7:15.2. Jun 16: C Kirwan 7:27.9. 30-39: M Tritt 7:40.3.

#Rowing: Spectators at the Garda Boat Club witnessed a rare sight for an Irish crowd - a competitor breaking six minutes for 2,000 metres on the ergometer. Neptune's Ben Behr Heyder set a time of 5:59.8 at the Leinster Indoor Rowing competition to rousing cheers. The six foot six German had an explosive start at a rate of over 50 strokes per minutes and then eased down and looked remarkably calm from there. It was is third time to break the six minute mark.

 Breanna Larsen of Garda Boat Club woas the fastest woman, with a new personal best of 7:05.9. Eimear Lambe of UCD was the fastest under-23 woman - she set a time of 7:11.1.

Leinster Indoor Rowing Competition, Garda Boat Club (Selected Results)

Men

Open: B Behr-Heyder 5:59.8. Under-23: F Mulligan 6:21.4. Under-23 Lightweight: N Beggan 6:40.8. Novice (1,000m): C Guilfoyle 3:00.6. Under-18: N Hull 6:28.4. Under-16: J Gibney 6:53.2. Masters 30: A Maher 6:23.5.

Women

Open: B Larsen 7:05.9. Under-23: E Lambe 7:11.1. Novice (1,000m): C Hawker 3:35.8. Under-18: C Feerick 7:22.1. Under-16: A Keogh 7:41.8.

Masters 30: M Ragget 8:24.4.

#Rowing: The entry for the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships has both quantity and quality, with Irish rowers who are set to compete at the Olympic Games in the mix. Gary O’Donovan will compete in lightweight class and Paul O’Donovan in the under-23 lightweight class.

Claire Lambe, who partnered Sinéad Jennings in the Ireland lightweight women’s double crew which qualified the boat for Rio, is also entered. Jennings may do a Wattbike test.

Among the heavyweight men, Philip Doyle, Sam McKeown and Dave Neale will be among those competing to set the top mark, while Sanita Puspure, an Olympian in 2012, should be the fastest woman.

The Championships have a record entry and will be held in Limerick on January 23^rd.

#Rowers of the Month: The Afloat Rowers of the Month for November are Barney Rix of Portora and Ronan Byrne of Shandon. The two young men set new Irish records in indoor rowing. Byrne set a new junior record of six minutes 16.9 seconds at the Provinces Indoor Championships in Limerick. Rix, who had won the junior section at the Irish Indoor Championships early in the year, competed just two days after the Limerick test in Enniskillen – and lowered the record by .1 of a second to 6:16.8.

 Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2015. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2015 champions list grow.

#Rowing: Breanna Larsen of Garda Boat Club set a fine personal best time of seven minutes 7.9 seconds at the Leinster Indoor Rowing competition at Garda Rowing Club on Saturday. Oblivious to the wind and rain outside, the women rowers from Garda, UCD and Trinity competed and set some good times. Trinity won the award for best female club, but Aileen Crowley of UCD took the under-23 title, clocking an impressive 7:13.30.  

Leinster Indoor Competition, Garda Boat Club, Saturday (Selected Results, 2,000m unless stated) Full Results Attached

Men

Open: 1 D Kelly 6:17.8, 2 C McShane 6:54.8, 3 P Murphy 7:12.4. Novice (1,000): C Harrington 3:11.7. Jun 18: 1 N Beggan 6:51.8, 2 J Phelan 6:53.3, 3 A Lennon 6:56.0. Jun 16: R Quinn 6:54.9. 

Masters 30+: D Quinn 6:31.40. Non-Rower (1,000m); 2:59.8.

Women

Open: 1 B Larsen 7:07.90 (PB), M Moore 7:20.10, 3 S O’Brien 7:23.6. Under-23:  A Crowley 7:13.30. Junior 18: E Lambe 7:18.90, 2 C Feerick 7:29.6, 3 J Coleman 7:48.7. Jun 16: S Maxwell 7:49.6. Lightweight: G Crowe 7:33.90.

Novice (1,000m): B O’Brien 3:29.8. 

#ROWING: Philip Doyle of Queen’s University set the fastest time – six minutes 1.3 seconds – at the Ulster indoor rowing tournament. Doyle and second-placed Sam Keown, who won the under-23 section in 6:08.5, were using the event to record times in the Rowing Ireland assessment process. The event was part of the BUCS (British University) indoor rowing series.

Scroll down for ULSTER INDOOR RESULTS 

#ROWING: Siobhán McCrohan set a new record for Irish lightweight women in indoor competition at the Irish Provinces Indoor Rowing Championships at the University of Limerick. The Tribesmen athlete clocked seven minutes 15.2 seconds for the 2,000 metres. The standing record was 7:16.8, set by Claire Lambe in 2010.

The best men’s open time was 6:10.2, taken by Kevin Coughlan of Carlow, and Jonathan Doyle won the lightweight open section in 6:28.1. There was a record time for 500 metres in the men’s lightweight 50-59 category. Christian Leonard set a time of one minute 34.5 seconds. SELECTED RESULTS

Dave Neale won the men’s open category at the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships. The UCD man’s time of six minutes 1.5 seconds was over 11 seconds faster than second-placed Eamonn Joyce of Cork Boat Club at the event in Trinity College Sports Centre. Amy Bulman of UCD won the women’s open category, but 20-year-old Jessica O’Keeffe of  St Michael’s was the fastest woman, clocking seven minutes 20.1 seconds to win the under-23 category.

Irish Indoor Championships, Trinity College, Sunday (Selected Results)

Men

Open: 1 D Neale (UCD) 6:01.5, 2 E Joyce (Cork BC) 6:12.6, 3 I Woods 6:30.8. Under-23: 1 D Brett (Neptune) 6:18.4, 2 S O’Connor 6:21.8, 3 F Crowley (UCD) 6:27.8. Age 30-39: 1 P Buchanan (PaddyPower) 6:11.8, 2 S Suvorov 6:17.2, 3 R Corcoran (Neptune) 6:17.2. Age 40-49: E Trofimov (Marine Technical University) 6:07.6. 50-59: G D’Urso (City of Derry) 6:36.6. 60-69: M Sherwood (Chichester Chariots) 7:01.5. Junior 18: 1 S Quigley (Athlone) 6:42.2, 2 D Schone (Borris VS) 6:51.6, 3 M Murphy (St Michael’s Col) 7:00.3. Jun 16: D Hazley (Neptune) 6:35.6.

Lightweight – Open: P Healy 6:22.1, 2 C Dowling (Lee Valley) 6:31.6, 3 O Dwyer (Cork BC) 6:32.5. Under-23: 1 C Barrett (UCD) 6:31.9, 2 Cathal Clifford (UCD) 6:34.7, 3 Cian Clifford (UCD) 6:41.9. 30-39: 1 F Geraghty (NUIG) 6:26.3, 2 J Doyle (PaddyPower) 6:31.1, 3 A McGregor (Loch Lomond) 6:54.2. 40-49: S Callaghan (Steepholme Pirates) 6:37.6. 50-59: G Murphy (Portora) 6:57.5. 60-69: E Winterbottom (Coleraine LC) 7:09.8. Junior 18: C Beck (RBAI) 6:45.0.

Women – Open: 1 A Bulman (UCD) 7:20.1, 2 S Cass (Trinity) 7:23.4, 3 C Bennett (Portarlington LC) 8:39.9. Under-23: J O’Keeffe (St Michael’s) 7:19.3, 2 C Cooney (Trinity) 7:25.0. 30-39: S Laivina 8:07.3. 40-49: J Lee (Arklow) 7:36.9. 50-59: J Hicks 7:58.6. Junior 18: 1 H O’Sullivan (St Michael’s) 7:30.3, 2 A Crowley (Muckross) 7:31.2, 3 A Cooper (Muckross) 7:54.6. Jun 16: H McCarthy (St Michael’s) 7:34.3.

Lightweight – 30-39: K Curran (St Michael’s, Dun Laoghaire) 8:22.1. Junior 18: A Leahy (St Michael’s) 7:53.4