Alex Dowsett’s attempt to regain the UCI hour record ended in failure on Wednesday in Mexico.
The British rider, who held the record for 35 days in 2015, rode 54.555km over the hour at the velodrome in Aguascalientes but never really looked like threatening Victor Campenaerts’ benchmark of 55.089km.
Dowsett had spent the week in Mexico in an attempt to help acclimatise to the conditions at the venue where the Belgian set the record in April 2019 but after 14km he found himself just over two seconds off record pace and could not pull himself back into contention.
“The biggest failure today would have been to have never tried and that’s the message I want to send out,” said Dowsett, who rode the record to raise awareness and money for haemophilia charities.
“Came up short. And I just want to take it to say another well done to Victor and to Dan Bigham because there was a British record up for grabs today and I was a bit shy. Hats off to both of them they are both incredible athletes.”
