Racing
The sport of indoor rowing was created in 1981 when Concept2 developed their first rowing machine and within a year the first world championship had taken place. To this day the sport is exclusively performed on Concept2 Indoor Rowers. There is an annual world championship in Boston, USA every February and national championships in almost every European country and worldwide each winter.
Indoor rowing has become a mass participation grass-roots activity, with an estimated half a million people working out on the machine every week in the UK alone. It's no surprise therefore that indoor rowing has become one of the fastest growing sports around. The 'blue riband' championship race distance is 2,000m and there are recognised age group world records for this and a range of other distances.
Indoor rowing retains strong links to rowing, with the national squad often competing in the British IRC. The fastest Brit ever is three-times Olympic gold medallist Matthew Pinsent.