Denmark sets 24 hour indoor rowing record

Ten of Denmark's best rowers smashed the World Record for a team going 24 hours non-stop on the indoor rowing machine over the 24 – 25 November. They set the new World Record by completing a massive 512,649 metres at Copenhagen’s central train station watched over by commuters.

This record is 35,194 metres more than the previous record. The distance also gives the Danish 10 the World Record for big teams.  The big team record was set in 1998 when 71 rowers did nearly 498,000 metres. 

Amongst the 10 rowers wad the former lightweight men’s double sculls World Champions, current World Best Time holders and Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medallists Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist. Three of the 2009 World Championship silver medallists in the lightweight men’s four, Christian Place Pedersen, Jens Vilhelmsen and Kasper Winther Jørgensen were also on the team and Thomas Morsing Larsen who competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the men's pair. More notable was that the team smashed the record without the help of the best lightweight erg rower in the world, Henrik Stephansen. Stephansen is the only lightweight rower to go below six minutes over the 2000m distance.

The Danish team's tactics was to switch rowers every 15 seconds and to row as hard as possible in those 15 seconds. After two hours of rowing, two athletes had a 15 minute break. This made it 45 minutes rowing followed by a 15 minutes break for each rower in the space of an hour.

The rowers took quick power naps during their break and sustained themselves with energy bars and gels, bananas, white bread with honey and marmalade and lots of coffee.

The Danish rowers set a hard pace of almost 1:20/500 metres in the first few hours. They were well ahead of the previous World Record and kept opening up a gap. They passed the old World Record with more than an hour and 40 minutes to go while Rasmussen was on his turn.

The Danish team had a goal from early on: to also beat the World Record for big teams and with 45 minutes left, the Danish rowers achieved this. Then it was only a matter of how far beyond the magic 500 km the team would go. Big Thomas Morsing Larsen powered by the 500k mark with 35 minutes remaining.

"We are the first team ever to break 500 kilometres, and we beat the old record by over 35k so this is really a fantastic achievement. Our tactic was to go hard out and the first 12 hours our pace was 1:21.9/500 metres, so we survived on this big lead over the last 4 to 5 hours where we all really suffered a lot to keep ourselves going," says Kasper Winther Jørgensen.

The Danish Indoor Rowing Team:
Mads Rasmussen
Thomas Morsing Larsen
Peter Søgaard
Anders Moustgaard
Kasper Aagaard
Mathias Thørring Larsen
Christian Place Pedersen
Jens Vilhelmsen
Kasper Winther Jørgensen
Rasmus Quist

Copy thanks to: Brian Martin Rasmussen, head of PR, Danish Rowing FederationVideo of the final minute here.

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