November 2009
34 posts
Thanks for following us and see you next time!
Thanks for all who raced, helped and supported. We hope you enjoyed, and will see you at the next one!
Many thanks,
Concept2 BIRC team
Men's Hwt Students
This year no Cambridge or Oxford to mop up the medals, we saw Reading really show it’s quality. GB squad member and Reading Uni student Sam Townsend got out of the blocks extremely quickly and pushed all the way to match the scores his GB peers got in Open Hwt.
Sam Townsend got the win in 5:53.2 which puts him 4th fastest time of the day and right in the mix of the established squad...
Women's Hwt Student
This was a tight race for the first half, with former lightweight Mathilde Pauls pressing the early leader Cassie Donovan from Birmingham Uni, all the way through first half. Cassie had a few weak spots which let the consistent Mathilde Pauls pull into a convincing lead, which no-one could catch.
After a couple of more wobbles, Donovan settled back into her strong strokes and held off the...
Race 30 onwards - Uni Races
All the remaining medals are being decided as we speak.
The Lwt men put in a very strong display and John Preston fulfilled his role as favourite by digging in during the second half and stretching his lead to earn Reading Uni top marks in this event in 6:18.2.
In the lwt women’s event it was neck and neck, with Reading Uni seemingly in charge all the way. Holly Page from Durham Uni...
Race 28 and 29 - teams and records
J15 team girls - Peterborough City RC just beat Warrington RC and Shottery with a quick, quick 3:53.0
In the J18 girls teams - Gleevesford from Evesham forged ahead of City of Oxford to win convincingly!
In the J16 it was an out-and-out battle with Trentham BC from Stoke and Nottingham Rowing Club. Nottingham pulled in front halfway through the race, however Trentham never let go, pushed and...
Race 27
J18 boys team:
Super quick Plymstock SSP Bunch took gold with 3:17.5.
J16 boys team:
Cardiff City boys took this 3:13.4
J15 boys team:
Stratford just pipped Nottingham by 1 second with 3:22.5. Great tight race.
CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD - Cardiff City RC J16 boys team did 3:13.4 for the 1000m race. Great result!
Race 23-26
J13 races:
Trentham BC won the J13 boys race in 2:54.5 AND the J13 girls race in 3:06.5 - a great race!
J14 races:
The A-Team from Peterborough City RC won the 750m J14 boys with 2:38.0
Maidenhead/ Ross/ Newbury RC combination took the gold in the J14 girls with a time of 2:56.4
Well done all!
Race 21-22, J11 and J12 teams
The junior team races follow now and they are fun chaotic events, filled with tight racing!
I will not be able to keep up with all of the results but I will push through the highlights.
NEW CHAMPIONSHIP RECORDS:
- J12 girls team Peterborough City RC with 2:10.0 for 1000m - J11 girls team Bishopsgate A with 2:17.0 for 1000m
Race 20 - Jurgens men....and no Benton.
This race’s front row was dominated by 1 man and 1 group. Rugby international, and BIRC veteran Garath Archer was in the middle, while he was surrounded by the entirety of the GB heavyweight men’s squad.
During the race, it was Archer to push out the initial lead and get 10m clear from the pack. The pack looked like a defensive line on the screen, no-one ahead of the other until...
Race 19 - GB rowers come in
It has been a busy 30 minutes at BIRC.
First Men Open Lwt. A really closely contended race here, with all three medallists coming in within a second. Nothing could split the two at the top and it was a joint victory for Stuart Bizarri and Mark Tinkler.
Open Lwt Women. Samanthta Briggs pulled clear and won in a very quick time of 7:18.0, extremely quick for the this category!
Open Hwt women -...
J15 races - Races 17 and 18
In the girls race, there were a number of great times and the top 3 were not that far ahead of the rest of the field. In the end Emily Ford from The Grange School RC strode ahead and won in 1370 metres with Holly Thomas and Kristina Cowley fitting it out for second place.
In the men’s race Denis Zaboronky had a great start at took an early lead ahead of 2 Nottingham Rowing Club boys Callum...
J14 boys and girls - races 14 - 16
Such was the size of the 14 and under entry, heats were run over 3 races to sort them out.
There were some very high scores for the girls and boys with race 16 being neck-and-neck between James Marshall from Peterborough and Oliver Knight from Walton. Being on different race machines it was difficult to tell who was in the lead but both clung on for dear life and Oliver rowed 1 metre more than...
J13 races - Race 12 and 13
These 2 races are 3 minutes a piece, starting with the J13 girls, then the J13 boys.
Just as with the other time races, many go off like a rocket, but few can actually hold it! That sound in the girls race Eloise McMahon from Trent RC held off Sophia Parvini-Wayne from Camden and Emily Ward from Nottingham City School to put them into 2nd and 3rd places respectively!
In the boys race, Xavier...
BIRC People – Concept2 and the free drink
Concept2 Shop – Jon Boulter
Jon and the rest of the team at the shop are constantly feeding the hunger of the crowds with the t-shirts, water bottles and anything else that they need. It sounds easy but the truth is, there are well over 1000 t-shirts, hundreds of water bottles, seat pads, towels, bags there and they all are going to go – that is going to keep your hands full for the day!
...
Race 10 and 11 - Junior races
The races are coming thick and fast as the J11 and J12 races start. These are 2 minute bursts of adrenaline and show lots of enthusiasm for the sport!
NEW CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD Natalie Dixon of Cambois RC wins the J11 girls race doing 509m in 2 minutes! Well done Natalie!
NEW CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD Peterborough City’s Bradley Bucknell wins the J12 boys race by 28 metres with 568metres in 2...
Race 9 commentary and records a tumbling!
Race 9 is all about the girls racing and the J18 events and J16 event were heavily crowded with keen entrants.
There was drama galore over the J18 hwt race, which was closely contended with a dramatic conclusion. Yasmin Tredell from Evesham put in a firm start and pulled out a 10-15m lead over the field. This looked convincing until Rebecca Chin from Royal Chester racked up the pressure over the...
Race 8
Race 8 had the J18 lwt and hwt men races.
Marcus Bowyer rowed very stronlgy to win but the race was for silver and Greg Edwards just pipped WIlliam Mace into third by 0.6s.
The Lwt race was close all the way and Alexander Robertson beat Lewis Sloan with a quick 6:34.1 win
BIRC people – Gary Mason SkiErg
Gary is running the inaugural British SkiErg Championship using the new Concept2 ski-specific ergometer and training tool. The event is run over 500m and all BIRC competitors and spectators have been getting involved. The machines can be racked individually or in a group as pictured, and as used at BIRC.
Speaking to him this morning, many athletes are waiting until their race before giving the...
Race 7 - J16 and not so young
This race was dominated not just by the great number of J16 racers but by the adaptive and 90+ racer 99-year old John Hodgson from Leeds.
Jack Beaumont from Maidenhead RC won a CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD which has stood for 14 years with a time of 6:15.3 - a great race!
John Hodgson though was the absolute star of the show with a standing ovation as he beat the machine again and won the 90+ year old...
Race 6 summary
This race has all of the female Lwt age-categories and the Men’s 30-34 Hwt category.
In the men’s race it was white-knuckle stuff, as Tim Perkins from Lea RC and Sergej Using from Cambridge 99 knocked 7 shades out of each other and took it all the way down to the line. Tim Perkins just nicked it by 0.5sec with 6:06.4 - great race!
Sally Dickinson just beat Jen Whiting in the 40-44...
Race 5 summary
Race 5 was full of the lightweight age-category rowers. There are many tales to tell however the fastest of all these lightweights was Mark Mitchell from Mad Team who punched in a 6:18.1 and a NEW CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD to win the 35-39 Lwt event. Tim Male was closest behind with a 6:25.9 to win the 30-34 event for the second year in a row!
NEW CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD of 6:38.7 in the 50-54 category by...
BIRC people - Row Pro designer Pete Loeffen
Row Pro has been around for a couple of years now and it has been getting increasingly popular online and for individual training. I spoke to Pete Loeffen the designer of Row Pro and he explained the new features of the latest version of Row Pro - version 3.0.
Live Water
A great leap in the Row Pro graphicsmeans much improved water with ripples, puddles and more, as well as realistic boat and...
Race 3 and 4
Race 3 involved the 40-44, 55-59 and 60-64 Hwt men. All the results are on the website http://concept2.co.uk/birc/results but key to note is the winner of the 40-44, Pieter Engelbrecht in a very quick 6:03.2.
Also of note is Olympic Javelin star - Steve Backley who put in a quick 2k of 6:33.1. Impressive!
Race 4 had 5 different categories and some very competitive 65+ races.
Stuart Williams...
Race 2 conclusion
There were lots of competitors from this race. Andy Sangster from Humberside Fire Service and Mad Team was on the top race machine and blasted off from the start into what looked like an unassailable lead. That said, Gary Scott and Steve Turner chased hard behind, with Scott pushing past Turner at 750m to go and getting right onto the tail of Sangster. He push him hard all the way but Sangster...
Race 2
Mens 45-49 and 50-54 Hwt races going on this race…….
Women age group hwt
All of the women age group heavyweights race in the packed first race of the day. Some very quick times and close races, especially between Alena Antoneva (30-34) and Caroline Dolan (35-39) who were close all the way through.
Alena Antoneva wins in 7:08 with Caroline very close behind, both winning their age categories.
NEW BRITISH AND CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD Josephine Timms from Stonehouse wins...
BIRC is a starting!
Welcome to BIRC 2009! Today’s racing is going to start at 8:45am, with the final race to start at 4:20pm and over the course of the day there will be 32 races starting. Every race is nearly at full capacity so it promises to be a busy day!
Key features this year:
- Live race video. This is the view and audio from Race Control - you can see the video on this page
- Skierg 500m race. The...
Yawn...
We’re just about finished for the day. See you bright and early in the morning!
Saturday Student Race
Students races are off. Confusion reigned at the start of the Women’s race however all are off and men have started too!
First race of the day is at 8:45
The first race is 8:45 in the morning, we’ll be streaming live all day from then onwards.