2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships to go fully virtual

The 2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships (WRICH), presented by Concept2, scheduled for 25-26 February 2022, will now be staged as a fully virtual competition.

The 2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships, the pinnacle event for indoor rowers, was originally assigned to Hamburg, Germany as a physical event. The COVID-19 pandemic then created the possibility of hybrid participation. This approach would have given participants the option of taking part physically in Hamburg or virtually from anywhere in the world. With the uncertainty caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including new virus variants, potential lockdowns, and uncertainty in international travel, the Hamburg Organising Committee and the World Rowing Executive Committee have come to the conclusion after a detailed exchange to convert the 2022 World Rowing Indoor Championships to a virtual only event.

The qualification process for the virtual participants remains the same – (Virtual Qualification guide – Link).

Participants who have already entered to compete physically in Hamburg will have one of the following options:

• Switch their existing entry to race virtually. These competitors will then have to go through the virtual qualification process.
• Withdraw their entry and get a full refund.

To indicate their preference, participants should email indoor@worldrowing.com no later than the 2 February 2022.

All the other local & national events (German National Indoor Championships, German University Indoor Championships, Invictus Races, Hamburg Schools Indoor Rowing Challenge, German Talentecup, Company Indoor Rowing Competition) will remain as scheduled in Hamburg as physical events at the Edel-Optics.de Arena. If local or national measures are introduced which impact the staging of these local events physically, a decision would be taken by the Organising Committee and German Rowing Federation at the appropriate time.