Welsh rowers are being encouraged to stick their oars into a new global competition over the next few days.
The One Minute Challenge is a joint competition for indoor rowers that began on Friday 8 May and runs to 11 May.
It is being contested by athletes of all shapes, sizes and abilities from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The competition challenges anyone with a rowing machine to see how far they can row in a minute, allowing members of the public to compete alongside the nations’ top athletes.
Individual awards will be given in various age, weight and adaptive rowing categories with the nations also competing for bragging rights to see who can record the furthest combined distance.
Scores will be logged on a live real-time web platform, with participants being asked to share their results and nominate friends on social media using the hashtag #minutechallenge.
British rowing chief executive Andy Parkinson said it was a perfect competition to hold during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Would be great to see Welsh rowers helping to push 🇬🇧 to the top of the leaderboards over the weekend #minutechallenge https://t.co/YeYEwUJljm
— Welsh Rowing (@WelshRowing) May 8, 2020
“In these uncertain times, we’re delighted to be able to join together in friendly competition and motivate indoor rowers across our four nations,” said Parkinson.
“This couldn’t have happened without fantastic collaboration between each of our national federations – it’s been a real team effort to put this together and we look forward to further exciting initiatives together in the future.”
Wales has a proud tradition in rowing that stretches back to the 1908 Olympic Games, when north Wales-born Albert Gladstone was in the British eight boat that won the gold medal.
Hugh ‘Jumbo’ Edwards then won two gold medals in the space of three hours at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles.
More recently, Tom James was in successive British coxless four boats that struck gold in 2008 and 2012.
Victoria Thornley was a silver medalist in the double sculls in Rio four years ago and is the reigning European single sculls champion
The One Minute Challenge is the first in the series planned by British Rowing with upcoming challenges being announced in the future.