In Belgium there is a TV Show called “Container Cup”. The format of the show was simply put: 32 professional sporters had to finish a series of seven sporting events, organised in a container, in the least amount of time. The closing event was 3 km of cycling. The olympic rower Tim Brys did go harder than some renowned pros:
| Competitors | 3K cycling |
|---|---|
| Wout van Aert | 03:45.41 |
| Mathieu van der Poel | 03:55.24 |
| Bart Swings | 03:55.75 |
| Greg Van Avermaet | 03:59.19 |
| Thomas De Gendt | 03:59.75 |
| Tim Brys | 04:02.93 |
| Toon Aerts | 04:04.06 |
| Yves Lampaert | 04:08.08 |
| Victor Campenaerts | 04:10.85 |
| Remco Evenepoel | 04:10.92 |
| Oliver Naesen | 04:14.58 |
| Jolien D’Hoore | 04:30.70 |
| Thibau Nys | 04:38.42 |
Full disclosure: the event was executed on a simple spinning bike so we’re talking about absolute watts and not W/KG.
Jan Bourgois, an exercise physiologist at the University of Ghent gave some context to this phenomenon in a news article https://www.ugent.be/ge/bsw/nl/actueel/nieuws/roeiers
Translated with DeepL:
Consternation in the Container Cup. Rowing driver Tim Brys left behind in the cycling test renowned hard riders such as Remco Evenepoel (vice-world time trial champion) and Victor Campenaerts (holder of the hour record). And yet that doesn’t have to come as a surprise, as science shows.
Completely surprised was Tim Brys, an East-Flemish Olympian from that discipline, not with his result. “Cycling is part of our fixed training package. Because we couldn’t row for a long time due to the virus, we trained more often by bike, with rides of around 200 kilometres. I don’t even think it’s excluded that a rower could make it to the finals of the Tour of Flanders, although we were trained mainly on basic speed rather than explosiveness. Time riding and track work are better for us. The New Zealand rower Hamish Bond has even beaten George Bennet (pro rider at Jumbo-VIsma, nvdr) at the national time trial championship”.
The French sports newspaper L’Equipe concluded after a study among 26 disciplines that rowing is the toughest sport. Anyone who will rage Brys in the Container Cup will understand that conclusion. “I went to extremes on the bike and the rowing machine. I also wanted to show what we rowers are worth. We are used to going through the pain barrier again and again. If you don’t want to die, you can’t do anything in my sport. After a race, bystanders often have to help the athletes out of their boats and carry them to the podium. They have gone so deep that - literally - they can no longer stand on their legs.”
Model athletes
Nice bonus of that hard labor: rowers are model athletes. “Thanks for the compliment. We are complete athletes, who have to let legs, arms and torso work together in harmony and are therefore nicely in proportion.”
Move over, cyclist, triathlete and swimmer. At the top of the hierarchy is the rower, according to Jan Bourgois. He is an exercise physiologist at the University of Ghent.
and as an athlete, coach and scientist has more than 40 years of experience in top growth. “I wasn’t surprised that an Olympic rower like Tim shone in cycling, running and rowing. Together with the shorter distances in cross-country skiing and the biathlon, rowing is one of the most demanding disciplines on a purely physical level. These are three sports that train the energy-generating systems to their maximum. Former rower Tim Maeyens kicked a phenomenal 560 watts during a cycling test, which is close to the best pro rider”.
On many paramaters peaks rowers, Bourgois judges. “Such as maximum oxygen uptake. Once upon a time, a heavyweight rower reached seven litres per minute, the highest value ever measured. Their lung ventilation at maximum effort runs up to 200 litres per minute, while other athletes are between 120 and 150 and the amateur athlete around 100. The cardiac minute volume at maximum effort in the average person is 20-25 litres, in a well-trained endurance athlete runs up to 30-35 litres and in a top rower up to 40 litres. Rowers combine these top values with a high muscle mass and a heavy load on the anaerobic metabolism. The extreme acidification that 400-metre specialists such as the Borlées have to endure for 40 seconds, oarsmen have to endure between six and seven minutes. And which kills ordinary people. Simply put, rowing is dying.”
Brys and his colleagues thus combine the characteristics of a sprinter like Usain Bolt with those of a half-fondler like Kevin Borlée and those of a 1,500-drawer like Hicham El Guerrouj. Says Bourgois: “From a purely physical point of view, rowing - together with cross-country skiing and biathlon - is the toughest sport. With all due respect to other disciplines, but scientifically, rowers are the best and most complete athletes”.