2005 World IRC Report
The 24th World Indoor Rowing Championship was a bona-fide success. With more competitors than ever, and what looked like a significant increase in the number of spectators, the day was an excellent international festival of rowing, with the four Open titles heading back to four different countries on three different continents.
The fastest Brit of the day was Graham Benton, who retained his 30-39 crown with relative ease. His biggest threat came from Lars Kirsch of Germany, a gold medallist at the Seville world championship in 2002. Getting off with his customary powerful start, Benton was always in control of the race, leading from beginning to end. He finished in 5:53.6 over four seconds ahead of Kirsch in second place, who had to finish strongly in order to hold off Ian Coveny of the United States.
In the Men's 70-74 Lwt race, Geoffrey Knight was finally able to break Herbert Leah's old world record. Having threatened to do so first at the British IRC and then in Amsterdam at the Europeans, his row of 7:13.4 was not only half a second faster than the old mark, but also gave him a comfortable gold medal, cushioned by 34 seconds from second place. Somebody else who has continually threatened to break the World record is Roger Prowse, but once again he was just unable to do so. His time of 6:49.5 was, however, good enough to give him a championship record to go along with his gold. Philip Stubley, meanwhile, was able to celebrate the fact that the World IRC have moved to five year age categories for veteran events by winning a tight 65-69 Lwt race in a time of 7:11.8, exactly a second ahead of Edwin Alderman of the United States. The medal total was further boosted by bronzes for Bill Payne and Denis Melody in the Men's 70-74 Hwt and 80-84 Hwt respectively while another bronze went to Martyn Low in the Men's 55-59 Hwt race; although Martyn was just unable to overtake the US's James Castellan for second place, he did have the satisfaction of holding off the machine's inventor Dick Dreissigacker for the final medal position.
In the Women's 50-54 Hwt race, Anna Bailey managed to exact revenge for her defeat last year by Carrie Graves. Pushed all the way, Anna was forced to dig deep at the end as Grave's, rowing on the machine next to her, tried everything she could to hold on to her title. In the end, Anna just had enough in her tank, winning in 7:21.8.
In fact, the Women's veteran events proved to be an exceedingly fruitful source of Gold medals for Britain. Rosemary Armstrong ran out an easy victor in the 60-64 Lwt race, while Josephine Timms and Mavis Surridge won the 70-74 Hwt and 75-79 Lwt races respectively. Shelagh Allen, meanwhile, won the only British silver of the day in the 65-69 Hwt race.
The best race of the day for most neutrals came in the Men's 30-39 Lwt, where Olympic champion Thomas Ebert from Denmark tied for gold with the US's Greg Ruckman in a time of 6:16.5. Only a fraction behind them was Germany's Ingo Euler with 6:17.2 and just behind him was Slovakia's Lubomir Podstupka with 6:17.7. The race was in the balance all the way, and the finale saw the entire crowd on their feet. Other noticeable races included former Men's Open Hwt champion Tom Bohrer winning a strong 40-49 Hwt race in 6:05.9, just ahead of South Africa's Andreas Von Tonder in 6:07.8, who himself was just ahead of Ireland's Gerald Fitzpatrick in 6:10.9. The Men's 40-49 Lwt race saw Mike Caviston regain the title he lost last year in a time of 6:25.7, while Graham Watt won the first New Zealand medal of the day in the 50-59 Lwt, his time of 6:28.7 a new championship record.
The Men's Open Lwt race was won by Germany's Eric Knittel in a time of 6:08.6 with the European IRC champion Mads Rasmussen second in 6:10.7 and the United States' Peter Ording third with 6:12.3. The UK's Xavier Disley was just outside his target time of 6:30, finishing 29th in a time of 6:30.7.
The Women's Open Lwt turned out to be an epic contest, with old foes Lisa Schlenker of the United States and Juliane Elander of Denmark lined up against each other once again. In a hard-fought race, Lisa was just strong enough to hold Juliane off by just six tenths of a second, winning in a time of 7:09.6. Impressively, this time, as well as giving her the Open crown, was also good enough to shatter the existing 40-49 Lwt record, previously held by the UK's Helen Mangan in 7:12.7. Marika Page was just able to sneak the bronze medal from her fellow US countrywoman Elizabeth Peters.
The Women's Open Hwt race turned out to be dominated by the New Zealand contingent. Although the fastest start was by the former European champion Michelle Guerette of the United States, she was soon overtaken by the Evers-Swindell twins, Georgina and Caroline. For the first 600 metres, the twins, Olympic champions together in the double, were locked together side by side, both pulling low 1:39s. By the halfway stage Georgina, the reigning world record holder, had slowly started to wind the pace up a little, and she was showing metres over her sister, who in turn had clear blue water over the rest of the field. Behind Caroline, the other two New Zealanders in the field, Paula Twinning and Fiona Patterson, were jockeying for third spot. With the Evers-Swindells running away with it, the question was whether any of the Americans in the race could catch up with either Twinning or Patterson. Despite the best efforts of Guerette and Caryn Davies, they were unable to prevent a Kiwi clean sweep, Georgina winning in 6:33.2 with her sister second in 6:40.2 and Twinning third 6:43.4, just ahead of a fast-closing Guerette in 6:44.9.
The Men's Open Hwt final also saw a New Zealander in with a chance of gold as George Bridgewater lined up alongside last year's winner Pavel Shurmei of Belorussia, Kristaps Bokums from Latvia, the winner of the U23 Hwt race at the European championship and various members of the US National Squad. At the gun it was Bridgewater who got off to a screaming start; although nowhere near as broad as Shurmei or as tall as Bokums, it was clear that he was still able to generate immense amounts of umph.
Slowly, however, the immense power of Shurmei began to tell. The night before the race, Shurmei was saying how he was addicted to the Indoor Rower. "If I don't go on the machine for two days, I feel like an old man". He must have been on the machine recently then, as he was soon gobbling up the metres, the machine rocking from side to side under the stress and with 1300 to go he had eased himself into a comfortable lead. At those speeds, the line approaches pretty fast, and he crashed through 5:43.2. Behind him Bridgewater finished in 5:47.6, while Bokums took the bronze in 5:50.0, a couple of seconds ahead of Jason Flickinger, last year's bronze medallist and the leading American.
With a winning margin of over four seconds, it looked like an easy race for the giant Belorussian. Apparently not; his last 500 metres was uncharacteristically ragged and according to the man himself later, he'd never felt as bad after a race as this before. "You expect to feel like this just after a race, but not an hour afterwards." Still, with a second world title under his belt and with Matthias Siejkowski now pushing 40 and Rob Waddell still retired, he could take some comfort in the knowledge that for now, he's most definitely the man to beat. Still, with Bridgewater and Bokums just 22 and 21 respectively, and the likes of Germany's Karsten Brodowski, who rowed 5:52.7 last year at the age of 18, waiting in the wings, there's no chance of him being able to rest on his laurels.
