“AIRC25 was a great event - really well organised and a format that let people do their absolute best. I hit big PBs in both the 1k and 2k at the UTS hub with coaches and coxes in my corner. It did not feel like training alone on an erg, it felt like being part of a team.”
Dave Allen, Row Club UTS and St George Rowing Club
Across the window from 25 October to 2 November, competitors used Concept2 RowErgs in homes, clubs, gyms, schools and at in-person hubs all feeding into a single national leaderboard.
By the numbers
Busiest day: Saturday 25 October (AEDT) with 220 entries.
Peak hour: 15:00 to 16:00 AEDT with 144 entries.
Row Clubs and independent studios did a lot of invisible work in the lead-up to AIRC25. They taught technique, ran race simulations, opened at odd hours and turned small rooms into national stages.
At the Sunshine Coast hub at The Sports Hub, SCIRC turned entries into a proper club day. The standout was the Mixed Masters relay where Adam Jackson, Karen Van Rensburg, Dianne McGrath and Grant Clonan lined up together.
“The Mixed Masters SCIRC relay was the highlight of the day at our hub at the Sports Hub at Bokarina. The team of Adam Jackson,Karen Van Rensburg, Dianne McGrath and Grant Clonan won gold and rowed brilliantly. President, Wendy Coghill, and Head Coach, Rob Cossalter, put a huge effort into the successful running of the Sunshine Coast Indoor Rowing Club.”
Wendy Coghill, President, Sunshine Coast Indoor Rowing Club
SCIRC combined volume and results:
ERGfit had just come off the Australian Masters Games in Canberra. A week later, they were back on the ergs, running AIRC25 across five separate sessions.
“ERGfit opened its doors on Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so that members had ample opportunities to race. Some members said they would be keen to race again because doing it at our home studio felt very comfortable and not intimidating at all.”
Tamara Riddell, ERGfit Indoor Rowing
Tamara’s short list of moments tells its own story:
For first-timer Mark McCrossin, the hub setting made the difference.
“First time competitor in AIRC25 and it was really enjoyable. I particularly liked being at a hub because I was fed by the energy of the other participants and it was great to meet them. The participants are all ages, which is so pleasing to see. I chose ERGfit and Tamara was only too happy to give pointers on how best to approach each event. Still learning the trade.”
Mark McCrossin, ERGfit Indoor Rowing
ERGfit’s headline numbers:
Wentworth District Rowing Club is a good example of how a small regional squad can show up across the whole regatta. With only nine members on the AIRC25 start list they still rowed 23,945 metres, placing 9th out of 73 affiliations for distance and 10th for overall AWP points on 19,383.5.
Their results cut across age, gender and boat class. Juniors Riley and Tom Parker, Matilda Morrow and Drew Vagg lined up alongside masters athletes Flo and Darren Howard, Cathryn Dawes, Chrisso Boseley and Mollie Boyton. Between them they produced 15 podium finishes across the 2k, 1k, 500 m and 1-Minute events, including lightweight and open categories.
The highlight was a clean sweep of team racing. The Female Masters 40+ relay of Flo Howard, Cathryn Dawes, Mollie Boyton and Chrisso Boseley took gold in the 4×500 m, while the Mixed U19 crew of Tom and Riley Parker, Drew Vagg and Matilda Morrow claimed bronze. For a club that entered fewer than ten athletes, Wentworth’s spread of juniors, masters, lightweights and mixed relays shows how much impact a single, committed community squad can have on a national leaderboard.
At UTS, Row Club sessions turned social media curiosity into a long-term habit for athletes like Dave Allen.
He first walked in looking for better technique and a way to chase 100 m speed in the gym. What kept him there was coaching that respected old injuries, and a clear path to improvement.
“AIRC25 gave me something specific to work toward. The format and support at the UTS hub meant I could really test myself. Those PBs in the 1k and 2k were not just numbers, they were proof that all the technical work is paying off.”
Dave Allen
Since AIRC25, Dave has joined St George Rowing Club and now has his sights set on becoming a competitive masters rower on the water.
AIRC25 confirmed what many coaches already know: indoor rowing is becoming a regular tool for schools to set culture, build season benchmarks and give juniors a visible target.
Across the window:
At Loreto, coaches used AIRC25 to anchor the season.
Loreto set dedicated race blocks during the window, used the event as a benchmark for female school rowing, and kept the bench involved in every race. With names like Eugenie, Natalie, Ava and Ruby lining up in U16 events, the metres and medals became a visible marker of how their culture travels from the shed into competition.
In Canberra, CGS, CGGS, Radford and Marist treated the event as both stand-alone racing and rehearsal for the Golden Oar festival to come. Juniors who had never raced on water in front of a crowd got that experience on ergs first.
Start a school Row Club or host a session: https://www.rownation.co/row-club
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Canberra’s new Golden Oar festival gave AIRC25 a public stage. On the Saturday at Black Mountain Peninsula, twenty Concept2 RowErgs were lined up lakeside for the AIRC25 Row Nation Erg Relay, presented as part of the Golden Oar programme.
The mixed 4 x 500 m relay paired Rowsellas and New Zealand internationals with students from Canberra Grammar, Canberra Girls Grammar, Marist and Radford. Each team blended experience and youth. Strategy in changeovers mattered as much as raw power.
Front of the field:
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Average splits sat in the low 1:30s, but the bigger story was how quickly juniors stepped into a high-pressure environment beside national-team athletes.
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Golden Oar recap
Link to full article: Rowsellas bring home Golden Oar crown as the festival of rowing debuts in Canberra
Racing out of ERGfit, Richard Tomlinson delivered a 2,000 m that was all business from the first ten strokes to the closing 250 m. His performance has been lodged as a world record claim in Men 60 to 64 and reset expectations of what is possible for that category on the erg.
“Indoor rowing has been a reliable, complete and accessible way to look after my physical and mental health, and a good example for my kids. Competing is my yearly report card and a way to connect with others.”
For Aussie Roos athlete Nathan Couper in Men 40 to 44, AIRC25 became a clean sweep of all distances. He opened fast, held his shape in the middle and closed hard.
All four sit at the sharp end of AIRC history and have been flagged against the championship record list.
These headliners sit alongside dozens of personal bests filed quietly in hubs and garages. For many, the milestone was not a record, it was simply a first honest 2k or a first time lining up in a relay.
Medals give one view of AIRC25. They show which colours and communities kept appearing on the podium across nine days of racing. Relay medals are counted for the teams that earned them, and individual medals are credited to each athlete’s listed affiliation.
To keep this snapshot focused on organised squads, the table below lists the top 5 affiliations by points, excluding Independent entries. Points use a simple 3-2-1 system that rewards depth of performance across the meet
(3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze), with ties broken by total medals, then gold, then silver.
Independent competitors, who raced without a listed club or school, are not shown in the table but still had a major presence. Taken together they earned 70 medals in total
(32 gold, 25 silver, 13 bronze), underlining how many athletes chose to enter AIRC25 on their own and still landed repeatedly on the podium.
Raw times still matter, but AIRC25 also introduced Adjusted Work Points (AWP) as a common currency for effort. AWP starts with a physics-based Work Points score from distance and time, then applies published age and gender factors, and a lightweight factor where meet rules allow.
Simple rule of thumb:
Best 2k AWP + best 1k AWP + best 500 m AWP + best 1-Minute AWP = Total AWP.
That lets juniors, masters, men, women and lightweight athletes appear on the same fair leaderboard.
AWP explainer: https://www.rownation.co/events/airc25/awp
AIRC25 did not need slogans about inclusion. The entry list, age brackets and stories from the floor showed how many lanes already exist.
For Mary-Ann Millar (Women 55 to 59 LW, Independent), lightweight rowing is about fairness and adaptation.
“When you arrive at the start line, everyone appears to have the same equipment. You can assume we have all trained hard and shown commitment. The race then reveals who found the right balance, who can execute under pressure, and who wants it more on the day.
My last erg race was AIRC 2020. Now, navigating menopause, I am a different athlete who has had to experiment, adapt and let go of what no longer works. One simple framework that keeps me going came from my friend Guin Batten: set goals, make a plan, do the plan, review, repeat. It is simple, but it stops me drifting when training feels hard.”
Her AIRC25 results sit inside the overall AWP top bracket and give her a clear set of lessons for the next phase.
Kate Jones (Women 30 to 39, Independent) found AIRC25 through a work colleague and quickly realised that “Independent” did not mean alone.
“I found the opportunity to connect with others through a work colleague who introduced me to the challenge of AIRC25. Having someone to discuss which events we were attempting each day made the experience really positive. I loved watching the Independent results adding up and trying to beat my own times to lift our team up the rankings against club athletes.”
At Swan Athletic, older athletes used AIRC25 as a shared goal.
“I was very proud to represent Swan Athletic along with some fellow older ladies at AIRC25. We had fun participating as well as trying to achieve our best times. Our major accountability trick was having our trainer, and helpful onlookers, believe in us completely. A special moment was realising our achievement after finishing the team relay.”
Julie Clough, Swan Athletic
Swan Athletic’s medal return reflects that commitment:
AIRC25 showed that indoor rowing can connect school squads, studios, independents and high-performance athletes in one event. The next step is to give people clear ways to keep going.
Guided row-along workouts led by Rowing Australia athletes are now available in Row Nation Premium. Four structured 6-week programmes, three sessions a week, each with a clear finish line.
Row Nation Premium is subscription-based with a free trial so athletes can test which programme fits their current season.
Explore programmes: https://www.rownation.co/insights/premium-programmes
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For people who want coaching, structure and a room that pulls them along, Row Clubs are the simplest entry point.
Find a class: https://www.rownation.co/row-club-classes
Start a Row Club: https://www.rownation.co/row-club
For athletes who enjoyed AIRC25 and want regular targets, the Aussie Roos offer a simple next step. They are an open composite crew and indoor rowing community for anyone who wants to keep racing virtually on a regular basis.
Had fun at AIRC and want to keep competing on a monthly basis in a worldwide competition? The Aussie Roos might be a good fit.
For more information:
