Chris Boardman smashes Rominger’s record
Posted on 18. Říj, 2009 by admin in HODINOVKA
After a rather disappointing Tour de France (no stage win) and a bronze medal in the individual TT at the Atlanta Olympics Boardman showed up at the World Track Championships in Manchester in brilliant shape.
He improved the 4000 m pursuit record from 4:19 to 4:13 and finally to 4:11.114, beating olympic champion Andrea Collinelli.
After a relatively slow start he was riding almost 3,5 km with nearly 60 km/h! Like a lot of other riders he was now using the “Superman” position invented by Graeme Obree in 1995. One week after his victory he started his attempt to break Tony Rominger’s record.
He started with an average speed of about 56.5 km/h, 1km/h faster than Tony Rominger. At 30 km his lead was 34 seconds. From this point he slowed down a little bit, maybe because the stretched out riding position was causing cramps in his shoulders. At 50 km he was almost at 56.2 km/h, but still far from falling below 56 km/h. In an breathtaking finish he rode the last 6 km with an incredible average speed of 57.7 km/h, pushing him up towards 56.375 km at the end of the hour!