Hanlan’s ‘50th Anniversary Team’ Impresses in Virtual Team Challenge
The Hanlan Boat Club’s 50th anniversary year got off to an impressive start in January as the club kicked off the new year by competing in a world-wide erg challenge that featured 54 participating athletes from the Toronto-based club.
The Concept2 Virtual Team Challenge runs every year in January and consists of teams from around the world logging as many metres as they collectively can on the RowErg, SkiErg, or BikeErg between 12am on Jan. 1 to 11:59pm on Jan. 31. Many rowing clubs across Canada and around the world participate, but the challenge isn’t specific to the rowing community. Teams and athletes also come from CrossFit, the US military and other health/fitness areas. Many of the participating rowing clubs are looking to jump start their indoor rowing season and build team camaraderie throughout the coldest month of the year.
A total of 773 teams participated in this year’s event, with Hanlan coming in an impressive 32nd overall. The team erged a total of 8,823,051m, good for 13th overall in the On-Water (rowing club) division, which was tops among Canadian rowing clubs.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, encourage friendly competition among club members and boost participation in the Virtual Challenge, Hanlan embedded its own 50km erg challenge in the Concept2 event. Hanlan members were challenged to erg 50km, either alone or as a team, between January 24 and January 26. A total of 50 members rowed a cumulative 2,070,970 meters over the course of the weekend, helping boost Hanlan in the Concept2 Virtual Team challenge rankings. Dividing Hanlan’s 54 Virtual Challenge team members into the smaller Anniversary teams was like putting members of an eight into smaller boats to train against each other.
“It ended up really boosting the distance our team members rowed in the final push at the end of January, and I think we’ll try it again next year,” said team captain George Fulford.
“The opportunity to meet and erg together in the Hanlan shell house, and to encourage each other through Slack, helped build a strong sense of community and feeling of working towards a goal”, said Club President Janet Bolton.
Hanlan’s team members’ ages ranged from teenagers to well into their 80’s and no one rowed more metres than 70-year-old Fulford, who rowed an incredible 1,143,161m just by himself. His erging feats earned him a 21st overall, and third Canadian overall, finish among all the 10,787 individual participants.
“I have a suspicion that there are more ergs being used worldwide than there are boats,” said Fulford. “If this is true then there is an untapped resource in recruiting virtual rowers to participate in club programs. If you look in the upper quartile of participants in the Virtual Challenge, a disproportionate number are over 65 years of age. Being retired enables these athletes to devote many more hours a day to accumulating great distances on the erg. So we’re hoping find ways to recruit some of those people into our club.”
Hanlan’s 50th anniversary celebrations will continue throughout 2025. Stay tuned for more from the club as the celebrate their golden anniversary year.
