A Steve Redgrave-esque octogenarian has added another world record to his collection at a national competition.

Mike Hurley (82) of Woolston, near Kingsbridge, has had a very successful indoor rowing season.

He won gold in both the events he entered at the British Indoor National Championships organised by Great British Rowing in December at the Lee Valley Velodrome (Olympic Velo­drome) in London.

In attaining the gold in the iconic 2,000m race he became the British record holder with a time of seven minutes and 39 seconds, beating the previous record set up in 2015 by a whopping 4.9 seconds.

In previous years Mike has had several months out of training, but this year he decided to stay consistently in training throughout the year.

In addition to training on the rowing machine, Mike has undertaken a programme of weight and fitness training which has enabled him to become both world and British record holder in several distances.

Mike now holds the Masters world record in the 1,000m and 6,000m events, as well as the four-minute distance event.

He also holds the British record in the 500, 2,000 and 5,000m events.

Mike is rowing considerably faster now than he was seven years ago and has his sight set on several other world records.

Mike has been trained by Will Wood of Willpower Fitness for more than 10 years. He said: “The training is intense, at times quite brutal, but Will has the ability to motivate and push me bey­ond the norm.

“We also do quite a bit of analytical work as rowing is as much in the mind as the muscle, having a race plan and sticking to it is just as important as the physical strength.”

During the year Mike trained five times a week, doing 20,000 metres, racking up an incredible total in of a million metres rowed in 2017.

Nick Hubble, chairman of the BRIC organising committee, said: “It has been fantastic to see so many people enjoying indoor rowing, both participating and spectating.

“This event is growing year-on-year and we’re de­lighted that this has been the biggest and best British Row­ing Indoor Champion­ships yet.

“Several world and British records were beaten on the action packed day in the velodrome.“