Jacobs University hosts first Indoor Rowing Cup on ergometer rowing machines

Results will bepublished as soon as possible!

On Saturday, February 23, 16 four-person relay race teams from Hamburg, Bremen, and Bremerhaven participated in Jacobs University’s first indoor rowing cup over a distance of 2000 meters. Additionally 20 competitors raced the same distance individually. Amongst the participants were the German multiple rowing world champions Peter Michael Kolbe and Monika Bauer.

[ Feb 19, 2008]  This year’s participating teams in the „Jacobs Indoor Rowing Cup“, which is to become a yearly event in the future, come from Jacobs University itself, the Hamburg School for Business Administration, the logistics company Buss, the Bremen home building company Gewosie, the health insurer Techniker Krankenkasse, the highly traditional rowing club Hamburger und Germania Ruder Club, the Vegesacker Rowing Club, the University of Applied Science Bremerhaven, and the Lafayette College exchange students from the USA, who presently live on-campus. In addition to the four-person-relay races and the individual competitions there also will be an eight-person rowing friendship race between a Jacobs team and a team from the Hamburg School for Business Administration. The cup, which was organized with the support of the information system company "Datenlotsen", will be held on racing standard Concept-2 machines, the most well-known brand for indoor rowers.

Indoor rowing on ergometers
An indoor rowing machine simulates the action of watercraft rowing for the purpose of exercise or training for rowing, but lately indoor rowing has also become established as a sport in its own right. Modern indoor rowers, also known as ergometers, are devices that measure the amount of energy the rower is generating. Ergometer tests are used by rowing coaches to evaluate their rowers and make boat selections as the results of these tests are a very objective measure of an athlete's fitness. The US-American firm Concept-2, the most established maker of rowing machines, organizes a large number of indoor rowing competitions all over the world, including the world championships. The usual distance for competition is 2,000 meters. The machines used are very consistent and, although the resistance may be adjusted, a result on one machine can be fairly compared with results on other machines regardless of resistance level. Therefore the prevalence of Concept-2 machines has created a standard that facilitates competition.