The global rowing fraternity woke up to an unmistakable signal of India’s growing sporting credibility when the Army Rowing Node (ARN), Pune, was named Best Rowing Club Program in the world by World Rowing.
The honour, announced at the World Rowing Awards in Lausanne, placed India’s premier military-backed rowing centre above elite international programmes from Europe and the UK, marking one of the most significant global recognitions ever received by an Indian high-performance sports institution .
This was not merely an award for medals or results. It was recognition of a system a carefully constructed ecosystem that blends military discipline, scientific training, elite infrastructure, and long-term athlete development something Indian sport has historically struggled to build at scale.
A vision born in 2001
The Army Rowing Node was established in 2001 as part of the Indian Army’s Mission Olympics Wing (MOW), a visionary programme designed to produce Olympic-level athletes through structured, centrally funded and professionally managed sports nodes. Rowing, a sport that requires extraordinary endurance, coordination, and long-term physical development, was identified as one where India could realistically close the gap with global powers provided the right ecosystem existed.
At the time, Indian rowing was fragmented. Athletes trained on rivers with inconsistent water flow, limited equipment, and little access to sports science. ARN changed that by creating a permanent high-performance hub inside the College of Military Engineering (CME) campus in Pune, allowing the best rowing talent from across the Indian Army to train in one controlled, world-class environment.
Within a few years, that vision began producing results. By the Athens 2004 Olympics, ARN-trained rowers were already representing India internationally. What followed was a two-decade climb built on relentless infrastructure development, coaching stability and scientific refinement.
India’s only international rowing channel
The centrepiece of ARN’s dominance is its 2,200-metre, eight-lane, international-standard man-made rowing channel, the only one of its kind in India. Designed and constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers and DRDO, the channel offers what every elite rower needs but rarely gets in India: consistent, current-free, wind-protected water. This matters enormously in rowing, where even small variations in water depth, flow or turbulence can distort training data. ARN’s channel allows coaches to compare performances precisely, ensuring that improvements come from athletes getting better, not conditions getting easier.
Surrounding this waterway is a full regatta ecosystem: start towers, timing huts, a finish tower, spectator galleries, and one of the best boat houses in Asia, capable of storing over 100 Olympic-grade shells. It is, in effect, a controlled laboratory for rowing excellence.
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What truly separates ARN from most Indian sports facilities is its talent pipeline. Through the Army’s Boys Sports Companies and unit-level scouting, young athletes with ideal rowing physiques height, arm span, leg power, aerobic capacity are identified early and brought into the system.
From there, they enter a development pathway that combines military structure with elite sport. Their training is backed by sports scientists, physiotherapists, nutritionists, and psychologists, all working alongside specialist rowing coaches. Each athlete’s progress is tracked using data: stroke rate, power output, heart rate, lactate levels, recovery cycles and more. This is how athletes like Dattu Baban Bhokanal who once feared water were transformed into Asian Games gold medallists and Olympic rowers. It is also how Balraj Panwar, a sepoy from Haryana, rose from army regattas to representing India at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
ARN does not gamble on potential; it engineers performance.
Proven success on the water
The results speak for themselves. ARN has produced seven Olympians, over 200 national medals, and more than 50 international medals. At the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, every Indian rower came from the armed forces system trained at Pune. India returned with five medals, including two silvers, marking one of its strongest-ever rowing performances at the Games. Internationally, ARN crews now compete without fear. At the 2025 Australian National Championships, the “Army Rowing Node India” team finished seventh overall among more than 2,000 athletes and won multiple lightweight events the best-ever performance by a visiting overseas team.
This global benchmarking was a key reason World Rowing selected ARN over European social-impact and refugee programmes. ARN demonstrated that high-performance sport, athlete welfare, community engagement and international success can coexist in one model .
Leadership that understands both sport and soldiering
One of ARN’s unique strengths is that it is run by people who understand both elite sport and military operations. Commanding Officers like Col Sandeep Chahal and Col R. Ramakrishnan have overseen not just athlete management, but infrastructure upgrades, technology integration and international collaborations. On the coaching side, figures like Dronacharya awardee Ismail Baig have provided continuity, while foreign experts have introduced global best practices in mental conditioning and performance science.
This stability is rare in Indian sport and invaluable.
World Rowing’s recognition of ARN as the best rowing programme in the world is not just a rowing milestone. It is proof that when India invests in infrastructure, data, coaching and long-term planning, it can compete with and beat the world’s best.
As India eyes medals at the 2026 Asian Games and beyond, ARN stands as a template for what high-performance sport in the country should look like: disciplined, scientific, globally benchmarked and relentlessly focused on excellence. From the waters of Pune to the podiums of Asia and the Olympics, India’s rowing revolution is already underway and the world has now taken notice.
