Estonians break the 1 million meters indoor rowing world record
Rait Merisaar, 20, and Rainer Saad, 27, have broken the 1,000 kilometer indoor tandem rowing record. The new world record is 3 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes and 1 second.
The pair broke the record on Thursday, taking turns to complete the distance on a Concept2 rowing machine. The new world record is three hours quicker than the year-old top time by Max Burridge and Skip Graham from England.
The world record attempt project was launched in September 2014. "Some think we are crazy, in a good sense, but this comes to show that they think it is a tough challenge and it is definitely not going to be an easy feat," Saad said back then.
Now Merisaar and Saad said that the nights were especially tough, as each only got around 5-6 hours of sleep over three days.
The pair also had a back-up plan. If the 1,000 record hadn't fallen, they would have continued rowing until achieving the world's longest continual run, currently at 4 days, 15 hours and 7 minutes.
The project aimed to support disabled athletes, collecting donations from sponsors.
Soudespinning.ee reports that the athletes also helped to save a life during their world record attempt, calling the rescue services after witnessing a man falling through the ice on the Harku lake, when looking out the the Tallinn Rowing Club's window.
Editor: M. Oll