Rowing Ireland are delighted to announce that during their Virtual Regatta sponsored by Kinetica, two of Ireland's High-Performance Athletes, Sanita Puspure and Aifric Keogh have broken the half marathon world records in their categories.
Sanita has broken the world record previously held by Lauren Schmetterling (USA) who set the new record earlier this year with a time of 01:18:14.8 in the 30-39 category. Sanita has now set the new world record at 01:18:13.6.
Aifric broke the record for the 19-29 category, beating Brooke Mooney’s (USA) time of 1:19:12.6 set this year. Aifric has now set the new world record at 01:18:59.9.
They are awaiting confirmation from Concept 2 with the PMS Verification codes sent across this morning.
Sanita Puspure said, “I started the session without much of a thought about records, but felt good and decided to give it a try.
Not a bad day on the rooftop!”
World Record Holder, Aifirc Keogh said ”It was my first time doing a half marathon on the erg so I didn’t know what to expect. My plan was to keep the first half steady and then if I felt good to try push on for the second half. It was fun to try a new challenge during lockdown but now that’s it’s done, I won’t be in a hurry to do it again!"
Rowing Ireland's CEO, Michelle Carpenter said, "Rowing Ireland together with our partners Kinetica Sports were delighted to launch our first Virtual regatta this weekend.
We saw this as an opportunity to engage all our members around the country aged from 9 to 90 together with our High-Performance Olympic bound athletes in a virtual regatta. We are overwhelmed with the participation and entries.
I want to congratulate our athletes Sanita Puspure and Aifric Keogh who have broken World Indoor records this morning. While we await confirmation from Concept II, we will continue to watch excitedly as clubs continue to submit their entries over today and tomorrow.
It may be another bank holiday weekend of lockdown for all. However, we at Rowing Ireland are delighted to continue to engage and to support our members during this challenging time for everyone.”
