2025, the summer Tim Clarke conquered indoor rowing
On the stroke of turning 65, the former rugby player shattered a trio of indoor rowing world records. Next up, the British Rowing Indoor Championships
65-year-old Tim Clarke has spent the summer obliterating three indoor rowing world records. Over the course of three days, Tim broke the open weight one-minute, 100m, and 500m records in the 65-69 category.
Tim knocked more than a second off the 500m record and beat the previous best for one minute by over 10 meters.
“When I got to 64, I thought, ‘There’s a chance when I get to 65 years old that I can break a World Record’,” explained the 2018 World Champion.
“I thought it would be the one minute, as that hits my sweet spot. I would have to row at 1:22 in order to break that, and I thought I could do that. I was messing around until about six months out, and I thought that I need to take things more seriously.
“I employed a guy called James Hall. He held the 1000m World Record until Phil Clapp broke it recently, and he holds a couple of SkiErg records as well. I contacted him, and he must have thought that I was a lunatic because I was so bad and couldn’t complete a lot of the longer pieces. I built on it; built on my strengths, and the day I got to 65, I had a go at the minute.
“I had already done a bit of trial, and I knew I had a good chance, and I beat it by quite a long way. I believe it was 365m and I did 376m, a 1:19.7 for the minute so at 65 I was quite proud of that. Then I scheduled the 500m for the Friday and to have a go at that, but I thought I would slip in the 100m as I thought I would be quite close to that.
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As a former rugby player, Tim made his debut for Bedford Blues on Boxing Day 1988. He played two seasons, one of which was in the top division of English Rugby against the likes of Bath, Leicester, Gloucester, and Harlequins. Tim played about 30 games for the 1st XV, and about 40 with the Wanderers, playing between number eight and the second row.
Tim was first introduced to indoor rowing back in 2005 when he bought a rowing machine to support his daughter. The two of them raced together at the British Championships, where she placed second in the Girls U15 event and he pulled a 6:43 for the 2000m. He placed 19th out of 90 and to this day that remains his PB due to is preference for the shorter distance that are over much more quickly! Fast forward a few years and Tim was crowned European Champion in 2021 and also took 2nd place at the British and World Championships. He’s also a three time age group BikeErg World Sprints winner.
Rugby has followed Tim into his indoor rowing escapades because the previous holder was former England player Steve Bainbridge, who toured with the British and Irish Lions in 1983.
“I did a 1:14.6 and it rounded up to 1:14.7, which was just enough, 0.1 quicker. That was a shock to me. I thought I could get close but not quite break it. Then I did the 500 and despite falling apart towards the end managed to do a 1:23.7 to beat the record by 1.4s and beat my PB by three seconds, and I was gobsmacked by that,” said Tim.
Next up for Tim is the British Rowing Indoor Championships. For the third year in a row, BRIC returns to FitFest at the NEC in Birmingham and, for the second year in a row, will feature Super Sprint Sunday.
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“I will definitely do the 500m. The training is a bit of a continuation really. I had a few days off to celebrate when I broke my records. I’m back training and I’ve got a cycling trip with a load of ex rugby guys going from Geneva to Nice over the Alps, which is going to be very testing for me with the uphills!
“Once I get back from that, I’ve got 12 weeks until BRIC, so I’ll start on the same sort of training block as I did for the world records, although I started a bit earlier. I’m at a level now where I’m a lot higher than I was when I started. We’ve got the training in place, which is four weights sessions and four rowing sessions a week.
“I managed to give up drinking for two months before the world record, so I’ll do that again, which made a huge difference. Being of a rugby background, it’s sort of almost ingrained in you. But yeah, it’s an incredible difference. You don’t miss any days the next day, you don’t feel ill, so I’ll do the same again.
The only problem with the Sprint Sunday is that it’s 60 plus, so there are some guys there that I’m going to don’t think I do quite like winning,” laughed Tim. “If all goes well, I’ve got a good chance at the 500m for the age group unless somebody comes out of the woodwork.”
