Who’s the quickest athlete on the planet? Many would possibly say Usain Bolt. He has, in spite of everything, run faster than any particular person ever… 9.58 seconds for the 100m.
In the event you learn that sentence above at tempo, it is going to take you about 9.5 to 10 seconds, the identical time (roughly) it took Bolt to stun the world in 2009. However is he the quickest athlete on the planet?
Maybe, maybe not. It is semantics.
Whereas Bolt is most positively the quickest particular person to ‘run’, the ‘unofficial’ title of quickest athlete would possibly really belong to a bike owner, a Dutchman referred to as Harrie Lavreysen.
He is a monitor bike owner who, within the flying 200m time trial, whizzed round a Velodrome in 9.088 seconds. It is a area of interest world document, however nonetheless it is uncooked energy, power and speeds in extra of 80kph (and a motorcycle) combining to make an elite athlete very, very quick.
Thirty years in the past monitor cyclists making an attempt this flying 200m world document have been battling to interrupt the 10-second barrier, however now, similar to Bolt revolutionised the pondering of what is attainable in athletics, the pursuit for the modern-day dash bike owner shouldn’t be an elusive 10-second barrier, however to interrupt 9 seconds.
Earlier this 12 months, British monitor sprinter Matt Richardson went quicker than Olympic champion Lavreyson over the Flying 200m by 4 hundredths of a second, however crucially the document hasn’t been ratified by the UCI (Biking’s World Governing Physique) as he briefly strayed off the authorized a part of the monitor.
He is taken the learnings, the information wanted and he no longer solely desires to interrupt the Flying 200m World File, however to be grow to be the primary ever to go below 9 seconds.
So British Biking are pondering exterior of the field to problem their riders. There is a World Championships later this 12 months, however no Olympics, so why not do one thing slightly completely different?
On Thursday at a monitor in Konya, Turkey, three British riders together with simply 4 assist employees will take to an empty velodrome and attempt to carry again to the UK not only one, however THREE world data!
Richardson is certainly one of course. That pace, the blink-of-an-eye world document he’s chasing has him extremely targeted, obsessed even.
When requested what he needed most, the world document or to interrupt 9 seconds, he informed Sky Sports activities: “I’ll be disappointed if I don’t break the nine-second barrier, I want to go under.
“The world document is what it’s, so if I am going below 9 (seconds) then I take the document, I wish to be the primary particular person ever to do this.
“I know it can be done, I was close (earlier this year) but now I have better knowledge of the track, I have better equipment and I’m riding at a good time of day.”
Richardson solely started competing for Nice Britain final 12 months after the Paris Olympics the place he received two silver medals and a bronze competing for Australia.
Since then, in GB colors (he was born within the UK), he is received two golds on his debut on the Nations Cup and three dash titles on the British Championships.
He is not the one Brit desirous to re-write the document books in Turkey. Two riders will try new one-hour world data. Para-cyclist Will Bergfelt has a goal of driving additional than 47.569km in 60 minutes. This document within the C5 class has stood for 11 years, so there may be confidence from throughout the British group that Bergfelt’s expertise and technological advances imply he’ll not solely beat the world document, however add vastly to a brand new one.
The one-hour document is, properly, horrible. Horrible for the rider regardless that they love biking.
It hurts each bodily and mentally, and at any level in the course of the 60 minutes on monitor any document try can go badly incorrect if a steadiness is not struck between most pace and power conservation.
Along with Bergfelt’s C5 document try, Charlie Tanfield will assault Italian Filippo Ganna’s world document of 56.792km in an hour.
Nice Britain’s Charlie Tanfield will try to interrupt the lads’s one-hour monitor document on Thursday
If he does set a brand new world document, he’ll just about be biking a kilometre each minute he is out on the monitor. He informed Sky Sports activities: “I break it down into three parts, the first getting up to speed, the second winding it up and then the third part I’m pretty much at my maximum threshold for the last 30 minutes or so. It’s horrible.
“The final 10 minutes are simply, properly, horrible! I am unsure I am going to be capable to stroll the following day or for a couple of days after that.
“All I want to do is do my very best. If I execute it well then I’ll be happy whatever.”
The three world document makes an attempt by British Biking happen on Thursday, August 14, at Konya, Turkey.
– 0800 (BST/UK): Will Bergfelt will try to interrupt the C5 one hour monitor document.
– 1015 (BST/UK): Charlie Tanfield will try to interrupt the lads’s one hour monitor document.
– 1400 (BST/UK): Matt Richardson will try to interrupt the Flying 200m Time Trial document.
