Concept2 Forum

Going into regatta season 2006, still improving, swedish rower, Lassi Karonen, performed a 15:20 5k during the winter. His endurance was then enough to beat reigning olympic champion Olaf Tufte in the 1x some times and also get him a bronze medal in the world cup.

I took a look at reported times for 5k on the C2 this year in swedish rowing. These are not entered into the concept2 world ranking. The fastest time so far this year is Lassi Karonen's:

15:09.3

This is the fastest time I've ever seen. Possibly the unofficial world record?

That is incredible! 1:30.93 Avg Pace for 5k.

Stuff like that needs to be video taped, it had to be quite a spectacle.

Get this guy into the Boat Race!

5K is a strange distance for an OTW rower to do time trials. Most National Selection time trials require a 6K time trial on the erg. These have recently been completed for National Selection in Australia. Some of the guys went sub 19 minutes for 6K and the women also had impressive times (some of them are world champions in various boats).

None of these times are likely to be entered into the C2 rankings nor released to the general public. I suspect many other countries do the same. Hence the C2 rankings for this particular distance is not a good source for elite crew aspirants to compare their progress.

Unusual maybe, not strange. For comparison the 15:09 5k can be equaled to an 18:20-ish 6k performance.

Carl Henrik wrote:The fastest time so far this year is Lassi Karonen's:

15:09.3

This is the fastest time I've ever seen. Possibly the unofficial world record?

Its most likely an unofficial WR. Beating James Cracknells 15:09.9 from 2002
http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/records_5000.php

As Paul says these things should really be videotaped.

Ray79 wrote:

Carl Henrik wrote:The fastest time so far this year is Lassi Karonen's:

15:09.3

This is the fastest time I've ever seen. Possibly the unofficial world record?

Its most likely an unofficial WR. Beating James Cracknells 15:09.9 from 2002
http://www.concept2.co.uk/racing/records_5000.php

As Paul says these things should really be videotaped.

Both average paces beat 1:31.0
Cracknell - 1:30.99
Karonen - 1:30.93

But the PM's would have displayed 1:31.0 and 1:30.9 respectively, so perhaps they were going for the "sub 1:31", which would be anything under 15:10.0.

Correct me if I am wrong Carl Henrik. Didn't Lassi Karonen perform a new 2k Swedish Record 5:47.5 just two weeks ago?

Olaf Tufte writes in his blog that he tested 15:15 on 5000m the 15th February.
He had done a lactate test the day before so he was a little skeptical before he started. After some bad rowing around 3000m, his couch yelled at him, and he rowed the last 1000m in 2.57.

Lars

Hello Arno,

Yes, Lassi Karonen broke his swedish record of 5:49.3 from last year by the new 5:47.5.

The whole second per 500 on the 5k "only" transfererd to .5 second over the 2k. This being in line with performing relatively even better over longer distances, like the 5k.

He is almost precisely doubling the d adding 3 when going from 2 to 5k. Makes you wonder what he could do on longer distances, if ultimately his weight (105kg) will change that 3 to something higher or not.

He does cross country skiing for very long distances though with seemingly no regard for weighing up to 50% more than the other competitors. 2006 he finished only 18minutes after the winner in Vasaloppet, an international 90km race with 14000 competitors.

In the same race, however, Olaf Tufte finished only 15 minutes behind the winner. They both seem to move very well from 2k to 5k.