The 2005 British IRC will go down, at least in-house, as The One Where Everything Pretty Much Went According To Plan. Despite 2,300 people competing on the day, over 300 up on last year's previous record, racing stayed on schedule pretty much throughout the entire course of the day and the race system was steadier than ever, despite having to cope with 120 machines at a time.The racing was better than ever this year, too. 29 men went under the six-minute barrier, while 10 women were faster then seven minutes. This compares to 10 men and two women last year and is, we reckon we're safe in saying, a record for any race ever. There were two world records set as well. In the Men's Junior 18 Lwt category, Henrik Stephansen of Denmark rowed a phenomenal 6:15.2, beating the old mark by nearly a second. He didn't seem particularly out of breath at the end either, and at the age of 17 will undoubtedly turn out to be a star for a long time to come. At the far end of the age range, John Hodgson established a new record for the 95-99 Lwt category. Rowing an expertly paced 10:28.1, John was asked by one of the TV reporters why it was that he rowed in a thick pullover rather than an All-in-One, gently explaining as you get older you get colder. Despite the chill, John was in fine fettle and received a Lifetime Achievement award. Another veteran responsible for a record was Alan Hanna of Telford in the 80-84 Lwt event, whose time of 8:19.7 makes him new the British record holder.The fastest time of the day came from the US's Jamie Schroeder, who won the Men's BUSA Hwt in 5:44.0. Jamie's a former world indoor rowing champion, and came to indoor rowing after finding he had a natural aptitude for the sport. Since then he was started rowing on the water and is now at Oxford, hoping for a place in next year's Boat Race. All in all, honours between Oxford and Cambridge were pretty even in the BUSA race. Despite Oxford taking the top spot, Cambridge had the three next fastest finishers and the universities tied with four rowers a piece in the top ten.The second fastest rower was Graham Benton, retaining his crown in the Men's Open Hwt. Despite rowing in a field containing Olympic champions and most of the British national squad, Graham cruised to victory in 5:46.8, taking over four seconds off his previous personal best and beating second placed Matt Langridge by five seconds. The other Open races also saw some excellent racing. In the Women's Open Hwt, Sarah Winckless won in a time of 6:37.5, just ahead of Annabel Vernon and Laura Gater. The Lightweight Open races, meanwhile, were both titanic affairs. In the men's race, Mark Hunter, who led the race pretty much from start to finish was just able to hold off an incredible late surge from Tim Male, with but three-tenths of a second separating the two, Hunter winning in a time of 6:09.8. In the women's event, Naomi Hoogesteger was forced to break the championship record with a time of 7:03.6 in order to beat Jo Hammond, who took the silver in 7:05.5. All in all, this year's championship was probably the most competitive yet. At one point, every event we saw seemed to come down to a few fractions of second. To get all Jerry Springer's Final Thought for a moment, however, the day has never been about the headline-makers and the record-breakers. As anybody who's ever rowed 2,000m knows, at some point, generally about 1,200m in, it comes down to you against yourself. The true success of the day is not how many people went under 6 minutes, but about every single person who came through the doors determined to give as good an account of themselves as possible. Whether you were an FES rower (http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/news.php?story=fes_2005) or an Olympian, a 95 year old record breaker or a ten-year old taking your first steps on a lifetime of competition, we'd like to thank everybody who turned up, even the incredibly sweaty man we had never seen before who hugged us as he'd broken seven minutes for the first time. We hope to see you all again next year.Race Results and Analysis**************************************Full results for the championship can be found at http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/results.php.If you go to the results for each event and click on Race Analysis next to a name, you can see the split data for that person, as well as a stroke graph. You can also find links to download the split and stroke data for that race. The Race Analysis page also contains a downloadable PDF certificate for each competitor, that has their name, position and time on. List of Medallists: http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/results_2005_summary.phpTop 50s: http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/results_2005_top50.phpOn-Line World Ranking Monthly Challenges**************************************This month saw the launch of the On-Line Ranking Monthly Challenge. Each month there's a different distance or time to have a crack at, and everybody from the UK who completes the challenge will go into a prize draw for some top quality goodies, which this month include POWERbreathe Sports and Gaiam Sports Conditioning Kits. Everybody who completes all 12 challenges will also be entered into a superdraw at the end of the year. This month's challenge is 2,000m so, if you took part at the championship, make sure you go along to http://www.concept2.com/sranking03/log.asp?language=4 and enter your result. Race Replays**************************************Even if you didn't get to surge dramatically through the field at the end like an avenging angel through butter, check out the replays of the all races on-line at http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/replays.php. Redgrave Team Challenge**************************************The Redgrave Team Challenge sees teams of four race over 4,000m, with the top five in each heat going through to a final at the end of the day. If you've ever seen it, it's all rather exciting and hectic, with the format allowing some people to put in some monster strokes.The Men's Corporate/Fitness winners were, for the second year running, Royce's Gym from Wigan. Beating their time from last year, they covered the distance in just 2:59.3. Equally dominant victories were recorded in the Junior 16 events, where Wimbledon's KCS1 won the men's event and Lymm High Sch/Warrington RC from Liverpool won the women's in times of 3:20.3 and 4:03.4 respectively. The Women's Corporate/Fitness race was close, however, with Colmers Women's B having to dig deep in order to pip David Lloyd Reading.Results for the Redgrave Team Challenge can be found at http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/results_2005_team.php.bircTV **************************************If you have access to cable or satellite television, you can see the championship in glorious coloured technivision on UKTV G2 at 6:30pm on Sunday 27th November and then every day at the same time and place until December 3rd. More details can be found at http://www.uktv.co.uk/index.cfm?uktv=tv.series&tvSid=2754 Photo Digital ************************************** Some photographs from the day can be found at http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/photographs.php, showcasing a selection of people having a very painful time and at least one bloke who somewhat scares us. If you were competing, you may have noticed the paparazzi from Photo Digital hanging around. They aimed to take a snap of everyone who competed, and the fruits of their labours can be seen at http://www.photodigital.co.uk/vscript/eventindex.asp?S=pd&C=209 from where you can also purchase a copy as well. Questionnaire/Feedback ************************************** If you were present at the championship, whether as competitor, spectator, coach, parent or other, we'd be very grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to fill out a brief questionnaire about the day at http://www.therowingcompany.com/birc/news.php?story=questionnaire. We're always keen to hear your feedback about everything we do, and especially the British IRC. Alternatively, send your thoughts in to [email protected] and we'll make sure they get to the right person.