Questioning Luanne Suplick lightweight 60min WR

[wjschmidt2]

60 30-39 Luanne Suplick F Lwt 36 USA 16193m 2005 Witnessed at public club

I've been trying to understand how a 126 lb. rower can row that fast. Male or female seems awfully fast.

I've contacted Dena at Concept 2 to look into this performance.

This row is even faster than the current 30' lwt women world record.

Any comments?

Bill

[wjschmidt2]

Lorraine Walker owns multiple world records for the women lightweight division can't even hold that pace (1:51.1 for 60'). Her record pace is 1:51.6 for 30'.

Meghan O'Leary rows a 16154 in the 30-39 age group for heavyweights. She went to Rio.

So how can a 126 lb 39-year old outperform these two giants?

Something is fishy here.

Bill

[johnlvs2run]

How do you know she weighed 126 pounds? Women lightweights are 135 pounds or less,
so that's close anyway, and even the lightweight 2k record is only 6 seconds / 500 off the heavyweight time.

Luanne Suplick appears to still be quite active on the water, for example at Head of the Charles.
That a lightweight woman could be faster than most heavyweights for 60 minutes seems quite feasible.

[wjschmidt2]

John,

Someone with that talent who only rows with a club team is very strange. She is the fastest lightweight ever at 60 minutes. You would think someone with that much passion to row at top speed on an erg, and also, on the water would have the desire to compete at the Olympics. She is still young why not at least try an find a sponsor? What kind of friends and teammates would not encourage her to the next level? Her weight is posted on her profile, so 126 lbs is pretty amazing for a 16k+ for 60 minutes. You can relate to that pace being a lightweight as well. Of course, we found other rowers in public clubs submitting exaggerated times and distances as well. So, I'm just curious what others think of this outstanding performance.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Bill

[johnlvs2run]

Hi Bill,

The women's 60 minute heavyweight record is also much faster than the 30 minute record.
Are you questioning that one too? My 10k for this month is faster than my 30 minute pace for the past year.

I don't know who she is, and don't find her profile, but my weight was 143 in 2003, much different than now.
People's weight changes, and her 60 minute row was 14 years ago. Much better would be to have weights entered as
times are entered, rather than having one weight for years, but that's not how C2 does it, and they don't even count weight
with calculation of pace. Thus times are based on absolute weight, rather than being based on a pace / watts per weight basis.

My C2 rowing half marathon pace was less than my 2k pace plus 6 seconds in 2003, although I trained much more
for the 2k. That a lighter person would be able to do a 60 minute row at 2k plus 5 or less seems to be quite reasonable.
which would put her somewhat over 7 minutes for 2k, and that fast only provided she trained for the 2k quite a bit.

Also, there is no 60 minute Olympic rowing event for women lightweight singles, and the 2k is an entirely different event.
Rowers as a whole don't train for 60 minute events, so the times / paces are generally soft compared to the popular 2k event.

I don't know the answer to your question, but those are some thoughts on the matter.

Best regards

[jackarabit]

Amazing that the lady had to wait 14 yrs. to have her WR challenged! She must have been sweating bullets Her public profile is witness to just how fast cream can rise. (Cf date logbook acquired and date of entry in question.) I assume she had a great deal of experience, uni or club, prior to logging @ C2. In any case, 50 yr. olds are perhaps as young as they feel but hardly young enuf to get much attention to their future prospects of grand success. An outlier for sure.

[jamesg]

Are her other times consistent?

[jackarabit]

i find only one additional entry for her in F LWT, 2005, 500m thru HM inclusive (came 25 of 50 in 10k):

[NavigationHazard]

She ranked an unverified 8:37.4 2k on April 1, 2005. That was 43d in the category out of 114 for the season.

[wjschmidt2]

Gentlemen thanks for your comments.

You would think that someone with that ability and living so close to Boston she would of been to a least one CRASH-B!

Ruth Roebuck is another interesting case as well. Another lightweight who appears for two days and sets the second best at 60' behind Luanne and comes back the next day to set a WR for 10k. At the age of 39 and 128 pounds. Not sure why she was never a stand out in the UK or the world back then.

2013 60 Minutes Indoor Rower Rankings
1 Ruth Roebuck 39 GBR 16015 I Yes
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Weight Class: Lwt
Country: United Kingdom
Verified: Yes
Type: Indoor Rower
Time: 1:00:00.0
Distance: 16,015m
Pace: 1:52.3
Date: November 23, 2012
Entered: Web

2013 10,000m Indoor Rower Rankings
1 Ruth Roebuck 39 GBR 36:52.7 I Yes
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Weight Class: Lwt
Country: United Kingdom
Verified: Yes
Type: Indoor Rower
Time: 36:52.7
Distance: 10,000m
Pace: 1:50.6
Date: November 24, 2012
Entered: Web



Ruth Roebuck
Age: 45
Country: United Kingdom
Location: BATH
Weight: 128 lb
Ranking ID: 944176
Member since: November 22, 2012


I have sent both of these names to Dena to check. We managed to remove Ron Freed from the record books a few years ago. May be these two can prove there case better than Ron.

I am currently injured and not working which is allowing me some time to look over the rankings.

Bill

[johnlvs2run]

We managed to remove Ron Freed from the record books a few years ago. May be these two can prove there case better than Ron.

All of Rod Freed's times were quite reasonable though, so there was no case to remove him.
The only so called reason was because he maintained his speed over distance, of which many others do the same thing.

More questionable are all the people reporting fast 500's and 2k's, who can't row or ski relatively fast for a 10k or half marathon.
The rankings are full of them. However, I personally feel that their times - like Freed's - are quite legitimate.

[Allan Olesen]

I have sent both of these names to Dena to check. We managed to remove Ron Freed from the record books a few years ago. May be these two can prove there case better than Ron.

You can't be serious!

How on earth should they be able to prove anything after 14 years?

Such records should be challenged when they are new. Or when new evidence comes on the table. Not just because someone after 14 years thinks "That can't be true. Let us challenge that and see how it goes."

[jackarabit]

I suspect MS. Roebuck lost interest in setting records about the same time she stopped logging dailies. Is it possible the collective meters of all her ranked pieces could be equal to her lifetime meters?

My bad. I now notice that the combined meterage of her two ranked efforts amount to,less than half of her lifetime total. Clearly plenty of training, rest and warmupndown meters supported her accomplishments. HAHAHAHAHA.

[wjschmidt2]

Gentlemen,

Thanks again for the comments.

Ron Freed times, in my opinion, were not possible for someone of his height and weight. Doing a data analysis of all rowers in the lightweight category could reveal the limitations either because of weight or height.

Highly possible he rowed on a faulty machine.

No way to know.

Same with the two women in question as well. Faulty machine, a different user, incorrect information.

No way to know.

As technology improves so will our ability to know true records.

The current ranking system is nowhere close to being perfect. Accepting only race times for all records may be the future. All training times and distances may not be recognized as records is another possibility.

As our sport evolves so will records.

Bill

[johnlvs2run]

Ron Freed times, in my opinion, were not possible for someone of his height and weight.
Doing a data analysis of all rowers in the lightweight category could reveal the limitations either because of weight or height.

Rod Freed weighed 165 pounds, the maximum weight for a lightweight.
His fastest ever 2k was 6:39, if I recall correctly, not close to the world record for his age.

His strength was in his training over distance. I was impressed with his accomplishments, trained with my own modified Rod Freed plan and improved my distance times quite a bit. I weighed only 143 pounds at the time, 22 pounds less than Freed but got similar results over distance, for example averaging 1:57.7 pace for 21.1km, while hardly trimming 1:53 pace for the 2k in the same time period. That's not even considering height, as I'm only 5'8". Thus I know personally that his program works for the type of results that he got.

Respectfully, you don't train like he did, never did, and you don't know what you're talking about. Your opinion is not based on reality, but rather on false conjecture and assumptions. It is a shame, and more if you were a part of it, to have his times and records removed from the rankings.