Paralympic champion Pritchard sets world record at Euros

BBC News

29-05-2025

Great Britain's Paralympic champion Benjamin Pritchard set a world record on day one of the European Rowing Championships in Plovdiv.Pritchard, 33, won gold in Paris in the PR1 men's single sculls in a time of nine minutes 3.84 seconds but smashed that on Thursday to reach the final of the event in Bulgaria.The Welshman's new world record of 8:47.88 beat Ukrainian Roman Polianskyi's previous best of 8.50.38.Pritchard said his performance was part of a "performance reset" for the LA 2028 Games cycle."We've got a mantra back at British Rowing, where once the 2024 season was done, it was back to zero," he said."Yes, I'm the Paralympic champion, but this is a whole new cycle. You don't know what anyone else has done in the winter, you don't know what new athletes are coming through, so you have to keep up the training to keep moving on."I still feel like I'm early in my season preparations, but to go out there and get that world best time, it shows that the hard work that I'm doing - juggling being an athlete, trying to do some work in the city and also to be a dad - it shows that it's worth it."Olympic champion Lauren Henry also set a British record in the women's single sculls Henry, who won gold in Paris last year as part of the quadruple sculls, recorded the third fastest time ever to win in 7:09.76.The Englishwoman will race in the semi-final on Friday. The 23-year-old said: "It's an exciting result for my first senior international single race. I'm so happy to execute my plan."I've been focused this year on coming in and making myself a better and hopefully a more competitive athlete."