An indoor rowing World Record was recently smashed by a whole 10 minutes, at an event held to promote the sport to the HM Forces, at HMS Sultan.
A combined team made of serving members and veterans from across the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and the Sub7 indoor rowing club, took on the challenge of setting a new World and British record time for 100k, in the Concept2, 30/39 years of age category.
During preparations the team had been aiming to beat a total time of 5 hours 43 seconds, which had been set by a group of 19 French rowers in 2013.
However, the pressure built up in the week leading in to the event, as a French indoor rowing team set a new World Record of just 4 hrs 44mins, with splits between rowers every 1 minute and 25.2 seconds.
In May of 2015, a team of 29 rowers, led by Corporal Rob Jones part of HMS Sultan’s Military Provost Guard Service (MPGS), completed a 24 hour challenge setting a combined distance of 392,385 Metres and once again he got the new record attempt underway.
At the half way mark of the challenge the team were ahead of the pace of the previous 100k record, holding at 1:21.9 splits.
Encouraged and with adrenaline flowing the team pushed forwards, eventually completing the full distance in a time of an incredible 4 hours 34 minutes and 45.7seconds with a 1:22.4 split.
After the row was complete Rob Jones said: “It was a surprise to hear about the new World Record that the French had set leading in to the challenge, but it didn’t put us off.”
“We wanted to raise the profile of indoor rowing within the Armed Forces. With the whole team associated with the Services in one way or another, we were delighted to be able to complete the task within the military environment.”
“Once we had got past the half way mark in good time, we knew it was ours to lose and we just pushed on in.
“The last 10km were just a blur really, but we got where we wanted to be and with time to spare.”
