The 2020 World Rowing Indoor Championships go to Paris

The 2020 World Rowing Indoor Championships is heading to Europe. Paris will host the competition February 7-8, 2020.

The Paris race was announced during the recent 2019 World Rowing Indoor Championships in Long Beach, California.The end of the championships saw a formal ‘handing over’ of the World Rowing Federation flag, with French Rowing Federation President Jean-Jacques Mulot accepting the flag from World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland.

This will be the third annual World Rowing Indoor Championships. The inaugural event took place in 2018 in Alexandria, Virginia, making the 2020 race the first one to take place outside of the United States.

“We held the first two championships in the United States in full cooperation with Concept2. Concept2 not only supplied the hardware and technology for the events, they also supported the participation of international rowers and helped run it,” said Rolland. “Now it is the moment to move the event outside of the United States. Paris and the French Rowing Federation proved to be fully ready to host the championships and we have already seen a huge amount of interest generated since we first made the announcement. We know that Paris is the right choice.”

"After the success of Long Beach, we're already looking forward to Paris," said Peter Dreissigacker, one of the founders of Concept2. "The French Rowing Federation has always put on a great indoor rowing event and, with the support of World Rowing, we are sure they can continue to move the event forward. Taking the race over to Europe will help showcase what an international sport this is."

The 2020 World Rowing Indoor Championships will take place over two days, and will run at the same time as the French Indoor Rowing Championships. Racing will take place in open and lightweight categories as well as junior, under-23, para and masters categories.