Website performance issues on Friday 27th May

The site is hosted using new ‘Cloud’ technology provided by one of the world’s leading service providers. This is designed to expand to cope with fluctuating levels of traffic from across the world. However, this system has failed to live up to expectations.

We have been working closely with the hosting provider to remedy the situation. A back-up solution was put in place during Friday to help resolve the problem and restore service to the website. We are working on the site around-the-clock to monitor and further improve its performance.

Race details, photos and news articles were posted on Facebook and Twitter during Friday to enable fans to stay in touch with results whilst the site was unavailable. These social channels are also allowing us to gather useful and constructive feedback which we welcome.

We were aware that the site was going to receive high volumes of traffic during the World Rowing Cup and undertook simulated stress-testing on the site prior to launch. However, due to the relatively new nature of the hosting technology the impact of the actual physical traffic on the site was not revealed until the event began.

The site has been monitored closely throughout the build up to the World Rowing Cup and a solution was worked on as soon as performance issues were noted. This took time to implement but is now in place, allowing the site to be viewed again by fans.

The site is hosted by one of the world’s largest and leading hosting providers. We have tried to use a cutting-edge technology to host the site but this has not worked as well as we would like it to. We continue to work closely with the service provider to monitor and improve site performance.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by the downtime of the new site and look forward to a successful weekend at the Samsung World Rowing Cup.