Row2recovery Completes Challenge

For 24 hours non-stop, a team of injured service personnel, supported by Olympic rowers, celebrity sports stars and volunteers pitted themselves against the clock on ergo rowing machines in London’s Horse Guards Parade to complete one million metres.

England rugby star James Haskell helped row the final metres to complete the gruelling endurance challenge.

The Million Metre Row was the first official public fundraising event for Row2Recovery, a campaign to raise £1m for injured service personnel and their families.

Row2Recovery culminates in an epic 3,000 mile row across the Atlantic in December this year from the Canaries to Barbados, where the crew will be comprised of able-bodied and amputee servicemen who will go beyond injury and achieve the extraordinary.

Captain Tony Harris, co-founder of the charity, who himself was forced to undergo an amputation on his left leg after an IED explosion in the Helmand Province, said: ‘The Million Metre Row was an important first step in raising the profile of the 2011 Row2Recovery project’.

‘We are proud to confirm that we have already surpassed £400,000 raised for injured service personnel and their families, and we hope to hit our target of £1 million by the time the team of able bodied and injured soldiers complete the North Atlantic row early next year. We would like to thank everyone who helped row one million metres and came out in support of Row2Recovery’.

The Million Metre Row was rowed by more than 230 people, including England Rugby World Cup winner Steve Thompson and ITN anchorman Mark Austin.

Tom James and Alex Gregory from GB’s coxless 4 also took to the rowing machines in support of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.

They were also joined by James Cracknell, who himself completed the gruelling Atlantic rowing challenge with Ben Fogle in 2006, and returned to an ergo for the first time in years.

Cracknell said: ‘You will find out a lot about yourself on the Atlantic row, feeling very small in a very big ocean. But compared to the experiences they’ve had in combat and they way they have had to recover since then, they’ll ace it’.

Fundraising events will take place throughout 2011, including a special dinner in London on 14th November to be held at the prestigious Royal Horticultural Hall.

Donations will be distributed between Help for heroes, ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and SSAFA Forces Help.