Rowing Australia announce Row to the Moon Challenge

Rowing Australia, Rowing Canada Aviron, British Rowing and Rowing New Zealand yesterday (20 May) announced the launch of the Row to the Moon Challenge, inviting indoor rowers worldwide to log their training metres on a bespoke online platform with the shared goal of accumulating 384.4 million metres – the distance from Earth to the Moon.

During the challenge, which will run from 15:00 AEST on 21 May and end on 31 May, participants will be asked to upload the distance they cover on their rowing machine on a live, real-time web platform, adding sessions as regularly as they like and nominating friends on social media to join them in the challenge.

The motivation behind the Row to the Moon Challenge comes from the phenomenal uptake of the One Minute Challenge, which ran from 8-11 May and was organised in partnership between the four national rowing federations. The extremely popular joint initiative challenged anyone with a rowing machine at home to see how far they could row in one minute, and saw over 2,300 rowers participate across the four nations, with over 600 participants from Australia.

The One Minute Challenge also saw 19 Concept2 world records and multiple national records unofficially broken, all of which are currently being verified by Concept2, including that of two-time Paralympic silver medallist, Erik Horrie, who broke his own one-minute world record.

Building on the momentum of the One Minute Challenge, the Row to the Moon Challenge is open to participants globally, with each rower able to log their metres to their specific nation whilst contributing to the global tally. There are 17 Para-rowing categories to which users can upload their progress and contribute towards the combined total.

Paralympic and world champion Lauren Rowles (GBR) said: “It was awesome to see so many people at home getting involved in the One Minute Challenge. There’s been a real community spirit through the rowing world during lockdown and it’s been great to see us all come together and take on these challenges from our homes. This new challenge gives us another exciting target to work towards as a team and keeps that competitive spirit alive.”

By Rowing Australia
Posted: 20/05/2020