Ineos Grenadiers and Italy rider Filippo Ganna has set a new cycling hour world record with a distance of 56.792km, achieving the feat at the Tissot Velodrome indoor track in Switzerland.
The 26-year-old, who raced in the prestigious Tour de France earlier this year, smashed the record previously held by Ineos team-mate Dan Bigham by a margin of a huge 1.244km. Bigham only set the record in August, holding the record for less than two months.
Ganna posted a negative split and was three seconds down on Bigham’s time after 32 laps of the track, but soon ramped up the pressure to complete a total of 227 laps of the track.
After smashing the record, Ganna admitted he’s unlikely to attempt the challenge again. “I think I’ll never do it again,” he said in an interview following the effort. “If I do it in the future [it will be] before going to retire like Wiggins, but I don’t think before.”
Malgrado i pronostici,
— Filippo Ganna © (@GannaFilippo) October 8, 2022
quando li hai tutti contro,
quando a puntare il dito e criticare è più facile di porgere la mano e supportare,
quando c’è da tirare fuori le palle è lì che chi conta davvero ti aiuta a far la differenza! #mifamilia ! pic.twitter.com/CX3xb3QGE6
Ganna, who is a four-time individual pursuit world champion and an Olympic winner in the team pursuit, not only surpassed Bigham’s record but beat Chris Boardman’s ‘best human effort’ set back in 1996.
Boardman’s one hour record was removed by UCI for his banned ‘Superman’ position on the bike, but proved what could be done by a cyclist.
A track specialist who has more recently adapted to road racing, Ganna finished 95th in his first Tour de France in 2022, after becoming a two-time world time trial champion after victories in 2020 and 2021.
Ganna won the Criterium du Dauphine individual time trial earlier this year and will now travel to France to compete in the Track World Championship, which kicks off on October 12.
