Worcester Junior girls have just set a new Concept2 British Record for rowing 291,656m in 24 hours.

Commencing at 7.00pm on Friday 10th June 2011 they firstly attempted a Guinness World Record™ for the Longest Distance Rowed in One Hour by a Female team. There is no age limit so the record of 20k is held by adults, no doubt World Class. Our girls numbered ten for the first hour! Then just eight of them dug in and rowed for the remainder of the 24 hours!!!

In the first hour our girls came tantalisingly close to the WJ16 British Record of 16,201m by rowing 16,027m. Guinness had only confirmed we could attempt this record on Friday 3rd June so they had little time to practice! The girls then went on to row 291,656 metres in the 24 hours.

Just 14 and 15 years of age the girls showed remarkable resilience and as the 24 hour deadline approached were still producing well below 2:00 splits and in the closing minutes, some were down to 1:40s!

The row was in aid of funds for new junior boats, which due to the rapid expansion of our juniors section are so desperately needed. We are also raising funds for our junior captain's charity the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Thanks to the tremendous effort from this and other junior fund raising initiatives, plus a recent grant of £10,000 from Sport England, we have reached our junior captain, Em Price's target and our order for new boats/blades submitted! The girl's team leader Elli Arnot says she is delighted with the way the squad pulled together to make this event possible.

In the same 24 hours our J16 to J18 boys led by junior vice captain Isaac Page-Long rowed the length of our river, the Severn, all 354 kilometres of it! Helped by adult members of Worcester Rowing Club and Worcester University, they crossed the 354k line with over 13 minutes to go then rowed our the 24 hours to achieve 357,626 m in what turned out to be a tremendous team effort.

Peter Powell
20.06.11