While the rest of the Club was lamenting the cancellation of Durham Small Boats Head on Saturday, Roger Stainforth was busy over the weekend competing at home in Durham in the heats of the 2026 World Rowing Virtual Indoor Championships.
“The great thing about IRCs”, explains Roger, “is that regardless of the weather outside the event goes ahead and the main point of concern is the quality of your wifi and remembering to upload a video to World Rowing when you finish the race.”
This year’s Championships was different from previous years in that the usual 2000 metres and 500 metres events were absent and were replaced by three races – 1 minute and 1000 metres on Saturday, and 5000 metres on Sunday.
Roger entered all three events in the Men’s 80+ age category and excelled in achieving first place in two and second place in the third, against opposition from Great Britain, the USA, Belgium and Australia.
The 1-minute event on Saturday morning was a 3-way tie between Roger and two USA opponents who all covered 304 metres (with a 1.38.7 split time for 500 metres)
The Championships were divided into three time zones with Asia/Oceania competitors starting their races from 7am (GMT), Europe/Africa competitors starting from 11am, and Americas competitors starting from 5pm, which gave the later starters the advantage of knowing the time they had to beat. Hence, Roger who went first in the Africa/Europe heat was at a disadvantage against the USA athletes who had their race 6 hours later.
In the 1000 metres on Saturday afternoon Roger had to settle for second place in 3.47.9, 1.2 seconds behind Michael McGuirk of the USA who again had 4 hours’ notice of the time to beat and was able to pace his race accordingly.
The most satisfying result of the weekend came in the 5000 metres which Roger won emphatically by 44 seconds in a time of 20.17.9 (2.01.8 split), only 7 seconds shy of the British record, making up for the disappointment of the 1000 metres.
The finals of the Championships is set to take place next Saturday and will be streamed live by World Rowing, but with 6 to qualify for each event and no more than 6 completing the 80+ group events, last weekend’s heats will determine the outcome.
Men’s 80+ results were as follows
1 minute result (Time Team result)
- Roger Stainforth (GBR) 304 metres
- Bob Fisher (USA) 304 metres
- Michael McGuirk (USA) 304 metres
- Paul de Veert (Belgium) 283 metres
- Patrick Wright (GBR) 278 metres
- Bruce Livingston (USA) 268 metres
1000 metres result (Time Team result)
- Michael McGuirk (USA) 3.46.7
- Roger Stainforth (GBR) 3.47.9
- Paul de Veert (Belgium) 3.55.1
- Patrick Wright (GBR) 4.08.3
- Bruce Livingston (USA) 4.28.0
5000 metres result (Time Team result)
- Roger Stainforth (GBR) 20.17.9
- Michael McGuirk (USA) 21.01.9
- Patrick Wright (GBR) 21.23.5
Results of all races are on the World Rowing website.
Medals will be sent to winners in the post!