PENSIONER Chris Marrow, of Courtland Road, Wellington, has enough pulling power at the age of 73 to help break an indoor rowing world record.

Chris, a member of the Princess Royal Sports Centre in the town, was one of a team of eight over-70 rowers dubbed ‘No Surrender’ to row 100km in relay in 5 hours 49 minutes 50.2 seconds.

He was invited to take part in the record at Tommy Gee’s Indoor Rowing Club in Newquay by Concept 2, which makes rowing machines, and he had only two-and-a-half weeks to prepare.

Chris said: “The team made 82 rotations of 20 strokes each. After each flat out burst, the rower passed to the next person over one shoulder while dismounting on the other side. The next rower then continued so that the machine never came to a stop.”

Chris said their time, which is being ratified by Concept 2 as a world record, represents an average split of 1.44.9 minutes per 500 metres between them,

The time is just eight minutes slower than the world record for a ten-man team of 60-69-year-olds set by a team from Brittany.

After a couple of days’ recovery Chris started training for his next challenge – the Badminton Horseless event. He is part of a family team of three generations running over obstacles and through lakes at the horse trials site.