56.375 km: Chris Boardman smashes Rominger's record
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Image links to
https://e1.365dm.com/15/05/768x432/chris-boardman-hour-record_3302877.jpg |
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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. Look for the full
lap-time data of the final.
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.
Please read also
Fat Nick's report on the 1996 world pursuit final at Manchester Velodrome
One week after his victory he started his attempt to break Tony Rominger's record.
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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. Two times (around 38 km and 46 km) he had to
"relax" a little bit and rode a lap on the drop bar to release the pain caused
by
the stretched out superman position. After that second "break" he increased his
speed more and more, riding the last laps with an incredible average
speed of almost 59 km/h, pushing him finally to 56.375 km at the end of the
hour!
| DIST |
Rominger 05.11.94 |
Boardman 06.09.96 |
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| 1 km |
01'10.6'' | 01'10.8'' |
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| 5 km |
05'30.3" |
05'27.0" |
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| 10 km |
10'53.5" |
10'47.1'' |
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| 15 km |
16'17.2" |
16'05.5'' |
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| 20 km |
21'42.9" |
21'23.9" |
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| 25 km |
27'08.7" |
26'42.5'' |
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| 30 km | 32'25.0" | 32'00.5" |
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| 35 km |
38'00.5" |
37'20.7'' |
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| 40 km | 43'26.9" | 42'41.3" |
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| 45 km |
48'53.6" |
48'01.1'' |
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| 50 km |
54'18.7" |
53'21.7" |
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| 55 km | 59'41.7" |
58'35.5'' |
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| 1 hour | 55.291 km | 56.375 km |
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Since 2014 there is a video on youtube showing the full attempt
(the first 10 km are missing, also the clock is not shown continously and the
commentator is fighting transmission problems most of the time).
I used the laptimes from the video (plus information from a graphic from
Xavier Disley) to create a similar graphic to that above:
One can nicely see those two periods when he was riding on the
drop bars, also his incredible finish. You can find the file with the laptimes
here.
Back to hour record page
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