35 years of indoor rowing at CRASH-Bs

Three new World Records were set on the chilly Boston day at the Agganis Arena, Boston University with perennial erger Graham Benton breaking his own record in the 40-49 year old age group. Benton, from Great Britain, went 5:48.3 for the 2000m distance, a four second improvement on his former record time. This was also the fastest time overall at the regatta.

The second World Record came in the 95-99 year old age group. Stephen Richardson, the 95-year-old American finished in a time of 13:21.5. Richardson can total up 20 CRASH-B competitions that he has attended and he says up until he was 90, he still rowed on the water.

Roger Borggaard of the United States set a new record in the men’s 70-74 age group. His time of 6:52.1 bettered a one-year-old record by one and a half seconds. 

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The open men’s category was won by University of Wisconsin student James Letten. The 208cm tall rower says he has to live up to his height. Letten finished in a time of 5:49.4, nearly six seconds ahead of second place getter, Oscar Alonso of Spain. Then a very close run for the next three positions saw just 0.2 of a second separating them. Andriy Priveda of Ukraine scraped through ahead with Germany’s Christian von Warburg next, followed by Anad Rajesh of India.

The fastest woman of the day was Michelle Lazorchak of the United States. This is Lazorchak’s second season as a rower and despite her short time in the boat, Lazorchak plans to trial for the United States Olympic team. Lazorchak clocked in at 6:43.1, a hefty 12 seconds ahead of second-place getter Lily Keane.

The second fastest woman of the day was Emily Delleman of the United States. Delleman raced in the junior woman’s category – the biggest category of the event. Second to Delleman was Grace McGinley of the United States.

The junior men made up big numbers and overall nearly half of the roughly 2,3000 competitors were juniors.The junior women had the most entries with 286 competitors. Also growing in attendance was CrossFit participants who use the indoor rowing machine as the part of their overall training. CrossFit participants made the 30-39 year old age group much bigger.

Full results: http://www.crash-b.org/past-regattas/2016-results/