50 stunning Olympic moments: Chris Boardman's 1992 cycling gold – in pictures

Chris Boardman caught the cycling bug aged 13 after a 10-mile time trial in Chester and kept 'going back week after week getting slightly better until I eventually ended up in the British team'. Such was his fascination with racing and improving himself that he would study hi-tech data regarding pedal revs, power output and heart-rate while putting the hammer down on a stationary bike attached to a laptop in the spare bedroom of his terraced house in Hoylake Photograph: Photosport Int/Rex Features

Another keen, amateur, cyclist interested in improving performance was self-taught engineer Mike Burrows from Norfolk. Burrows realised that over 80-90% of a cyclist's energy is expended overcoming air resistance, and hit upon the wheeze of manufacturing the lightest racing bike frame possible out of something other than the traditional diamond-shaped wind-unfriendly tubing, using a one-piece shell that would hold both rider and wheels in the optimum position to minimise drag. He produced a prototype which his friend, who worked at Lotus, took into their workshop to examine and test Photograph: PA Archive

The Lotus engineers were impressed with Burrow's design and after much tweaking and testing the result was the Lotus Superbike or Windcheetah. It was black, feather-light (weighing less than 9kg) with a cantilever design fashioned from carbon fibre in the 'monocoque' style, rounded off with unaligned wheels (one disc, one tri-spoke) on the same side and extended handlebars that allowed its rider to sit hunched forwards with arms out, elbows resting and fingers interlocked Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library via Getty Images

Boardman was the ideal candidate to ride this new machine and after two years of intensive, hi-tech training, fine-tuning and tinkering, Boardman and his backroom team arrived in Barcelona to give the Lotus its first public excursion in the 4000m Individual Purstuit. The Briton promptly broke the world record, advancing to the quarter-final with a time of 4min 27.397sec Photograph: Ted Blackbrow/Associated Newspapers/Rex Features

In the quarter-final he smashed his own day-old mark, seeing off Denmark's Jan Petersen in 4 min 24.496 sec Photograph: Leo Mason/Corbis

The following day Boardman saw off Mark Kingsland in the semi-final, meaning he would face the reigning world champion Jens Lehmann in the final Photograph: David Cannon/Allsport

Boardman's blistering form continued in the final, by the 13th lap Boardman sensed he could catch Lehmann ... Photograph: Mike King/Corbis

And he duly did ... Photograph: John Stillwell/PA Archive

Boardman punches the air as he sweeps past the world champion Photograph: Stewart Kendall/Sportsphoto Ltd.

Boardman is delighted after his victory Photograph: John Giles/PA Archive

Eventually the gold medal-winner brought his Superbike to a halt so he could kiss his wife Sally Photograph: John Giles/PA Archive

Four years later at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Boardman chose not to defend his 4000m Individual Pursuit title and opted to compete in the 52km road time trial where he won bronze Photograph: Gunnar Berning/Bongarts/Getty Images

After struggling for two years with a strain of osteoporosis Boardman decided to call it a day in 2000 but wanted to end his distinguished career on a high and attempted to set a new world hour record at the Manchester Velodrome. Already holding the absolute hour record of 56.375 kilometres set in 1996, Boardman was going for the athlete's hour record in which the UCI insisted that riders revert to the same sort of technology that Eddie Merckx had used in 1972. Boardman's distance of 49.441km was just 10m more than Merckx back in 1972 but it was enough to give him the record. It stood until 2005 when Ondrej Sosenka rode 49.700 km in an hour. However Boardman's absolute hour record still stands Photograph: John Giles/PA Archive