91-year-old grandmother breaks world record at World Rowing Indoor Championships

The first day of the World Rowing Indoor Championships (WRICH) at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ont., was full of world records and historic moments, with many more expected on day two.

Afterwards Kingswood said, "I do it for my children and my grandchildren. I'm not a grandmother that does crafts with the kids or bakes cookies."

Kingswood just gets on an indoor machine and goes to the gym almost every day, even if some people are surprised.

"People say wow, I couldn't do that. But you can if you want to [do so]."

There were four other world records set on Saturday including in the men's 70-74 2,000m race which saw Richard Stout edge out fellow Canadian Phil Monckton in 6:44. Monckton won a bronze medal with the Canadian Rowing Team at the 1984 Olympics.

"Being fit and doing what I'm doing at my age, I'm pretty happy with it," Monckton said.

The day was also a big one for the tiny Faroe Islands, which is a set of islands located between Iceland and Norway with only 58,000 people.

The team, with six athletes from the tiny island where rowing is the national sport, won three world championship gold medals including one by 18-year-old Mattias Durhuus of the men's 500m.

"It puts the Faroe Islands on the map," Durhuus said. "People are aware of what we are, where we are and how much indoor rowing means to us," he added.

WRICH 2023 is taking place in Canada for the first time ever and is making history on many fronts.  It is World Rowing's first hybrid event with more than a thousand of the top rowers in the world competing on the arena floor joined by several hundred competing virtually.

One of those athletes competing virtually is former indoor world record holder Olena Buryak competing from Ukraine,