Finalists from 63 nations to compete in the 2021 World Rowing Indoor Championship Finals

Following five continental qualification events and an open pathway, the finalists for the 2021 World Rowing Indoor Championship Finals, presented by Concept2, have been decided.

To be held virtually from 23-27 February, this year’s World Rowing Indoor Championships is taking advantage of technology that makes an international virtual event possible.

There are 935 finalists hailing from 63 countries. Great Britain represented the greatest number of entries in the qualification round and the men’s 40–49-year-old age group for 2000m was the most highly contested event with 50 competitors vying for only ten spots in the Final, five of which were filled by continental qualifiers.

One of the challenges of setting up a global virtual event has been the differing time zones around the world. It is one of the unique aspects of live virtual racing as all of the athletes competing will race live and in real time. Instead of athletes having to travel to a single location, athletes will compete from home, which means for some the hours will be unusual. Finals race days will start at noon CET.

“When it became clear that a physical Indoor Championships was not going to be possible this year, we immediately focused all our efforts on creating a virtual remote global participation event that would retain all the high quality of presentation and competition of our previous World Championships,” says World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland.

“Thanks to the very strong support of our global indoor rowing community, we will have three days of live-streamed finals, enhanced by virtual technology, expert commentary, graphics and interviews. Our sincere thanks also go to the Presenting Sponsor Concept2 and Cloud Services Sponsor, Tencent.

While racing, competitors will know their placing as their indoor rower will be running in ‘race mode’. This will allow them to see their position in a race on the rowing machine’s monitor. They can also have a live race tracker set on a laptop or external device. All competitors will be competing on Concept2 machines.

There will be live streaming of racing on three of the race days including the finals on Saturday 27 February. This will be available to watch on www.worldrowing.com and World Rowing’s YouTube channel.

The racing talent has proved to be extensive with competitors coming from on-water rowing backgrounds as well as specialist indoor rowing backgrounds. Through the qualification rounds many new World Records were set including Danielle Kaschula of Marondera, Zimbabwe. Kaschula, 13, set five new World Records in 2020 during lockdown. She entered the Americas Qualifier last weekend and won the under-19 500m in a time of 1:32.8. While she was not eligible to earn the Americas continental qualification place in this event as a Zimbabwean, Kaschula submitted her score into the Open Qualification pathway to earn a place in the Final. This not only qualified Kaschula for the World Rowing Indoor Championships but set a new World Record in the 13-14 year old age group.

Kaschula also rows on the water for the Peterhouse Boat Club and in the lead up to this qualification event, she competed in the African Indoor Rowing Championships and the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships – all virtually.

From Finland Joel Naukkarinen leads a strong Finnish team that has made it to the finals. Naukkarinen himself has managed to qualify in all possible races – men’s 500m, 2000m, 1 hour, men’s team and mixed team. This included qualifying for the 2000m in a time of 5:55.7. Naukkarinen says he couldn’t decide what to enter so did them all.

Naukkarinen is a member of Finland’s national rowing team and currently trains twice a day.

Full list of entries here.