Roger Stainforth was delighted this week to receive a belated Christmas present in the post from British Rowing in the form of a Full House of medals from the online Festival of Indoor Rowing!
The four-event Festival comprising 1 minute, 500 metres, 4 minutes and 2000 metres events was quickly organised when the 2022 British Rowing Indoor Championships (BRIC) scheduled to be held on December 10th had to be cancelled due to lack of entries. Each event had to be completed between December 5th and 10th and verified results submitted by December 10th, with gold, silver and bronze medals to be awarded for each time and distance.
As DARC’s only representative Roger takes up the story. “BR did say that medals would be dispatched 4/5 weeks after the events. The age category for me was 70-79. Much to my pleasure the 2000m event was a full online/virtual event run on Concept2 RaceErg software with a 75-79 age group which also counted towards the 70-79 results. The table below shows my times, distances and splits per 500m. There were a few 70-year-old whippersnappers in the 1 minute and 500m events who pushed me out of the medal places but they faded away as the distance to be covered increased”.
| 500m split | 70-79 | 75-79 | Position | Medal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 1:36.7 | 310m | N/A | 5th | - |
| 500 metres | 1:43.5 | 1:43.5 | N/A | 4th | - |
| 4 minutes | 1:50.4 | 1086m | N/A | 3rd | Bronze |
| 2000 metres | 1:54.7 | 7:38.9 | 2nd | Silver | |
| 2000 metres | 1:54.7 | 7:38.9 | 1st | Gold |
“The 2000m race was the first of the day on Saturday, December 10th and there was a long delay in getting us started only for the race to be stopped because of a false start!! The reset and restart were very quick; I wasn’t ready so I had a slower than expected first 500m otherwise I was happy with my time and delighted to achieve gold once again”.
“I videoed the race and uploaded it to World Rowing as my qualifying piece for the World Rowing Indoor Championships (WRICH) on February 26th, 2023. The time has been accepted and I will have a place to compete online while others race live in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada”.
“I first won the gold medal in the BR Championship in 2012 when the race was held at Nottingham University Sports Centre, it was also the European Championship, in which I came second. I have won every year since, live or virtual, in my age category so the medals were a very nice tenth anniversary present”.
We wish Roger every success at WRICH in February which you can follow online on the World Rowing website.
Roger Stainforth with BRIC 75-79 medal in 2019