Braas highlight at Dutch indoor rowing champs

Braas, who moved from the Dutch Olympic eight into the single for the 2013 season, finished the 2000m open men's category in a time of 5:43.7. This broke Braas's former record, set in 2012, by nearly four seconds. Braas was pressed hard for the entire 2000m by relative newcomer to rowing Stef Broenink. Broenink, a university student, is in his third year of rowing and is yet to make the Dutch national team. He finished just two seconds behind Braas.  

This battle played out in front of the biggest Dutch Indoor Rowing Championships ever with over 1,300 participants – a 30 per cent increase from last year's participation.

"We think indoor rowing is becoming even more popular among all Dutch rowers," said Tim van den Ende, press officer for the Dutch Indoor Rowing Championships. "Due to a lot of publications about the event during the weeks before, especially about the battle between Roel Braas and Stef Broenink, people are taking the championships very seriously and are actually changing their practice schedules train very hard for this event.

"On top of that, the crowd (4,000 people) was really making the rowers go crazy on their ergs," added van den Ende.

New Dutch indoor rowing records were also set by Jaap Scholten in the 18 and under male category with a time of 6:05.3, Frans van Rooden in the 60+ male category with a time of 7:18.3 and Laila Youssifou in the 18 and under female category with a time of 6:55.1.

Winner of the women's open event was Jose van Veen in a time of 6:43.8. Top Dutch single sculler, Inge Janssen was second and Olivia van Rooijen who was the Dutch spare at the 2012 London Olympics, was third.

In the lightweight events, Olympian Vincent Muda was first for the men in a time of 6:13.2 and Nienke Hoogenhuyze won the women's event in a time of 7:09.4

Every winner received a custom-made medal with some events the winners also received 'PowerBreathe', a device to help breath training. Dinner vouchers were given out to the winners of freshman events.