British cyclist Charlie Tanfield fell three kilometres short of breaking Filippo Ganna’s UCI Hour Record on Thursday.
The 28-year-old rode a distance of 53.967km during his attempt inside the velodrome in Konya, Turkey. Ganna’s benchmark, which has stood since October 2022, remains at 56.792km.
Tanfield’s distance makes his effort the seventh furthest Hour Record of all time. He is also the fourth fastest Brit, behind Bradley Wiggins, Alex Dowsett, and the national record holder, Dan Bigham (55.548km).
Speaking before his attempt, Tanfield explained that he planned to use a ‘negative split’ strategy, meaning he would start below record pace, before then trying to speed up in the second half of his effort.
The Brit rode his fastest 250m lap around 19 minutes into his attempt, clocking 15.887 seconds. He then began to slow slightly around the 38-minute mark, and by 44 minutes in, his lap splits were up above 17 seconds.
A former track world champion, Tanfield began preparing for the Hour Record shortly after last summer’s Paris Olympics, where he won a silver medal as part of Great Britain's team pursuit squad.
During his training, he spent time at altitude in Andorra, and carried out turbo trainer sessions in a tent in his garden, riding at a temperature of 45°C.
“It’s a beast,” he said of the challenge. “It’s such a hard event that unless you are passionate about it, I really don’t think you would be willing to put yourself through the suffering and the preparation you have to do to actually get to the start line.”
Asked if he had a target distance in mind, Tanfield said it was “quite up in the air”.
“I’ve done a lot of training on slower kit, so it’s quite hard in your head [to know] what’s going to be race pace, the conditions in Konya – the air density is so much lower – it’s very hard to map that out.”
The track in Konya is located at 1,200m altitude – 750m higher than the velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland where Ganna set his record.
Tanfield completed his attempt on a Hope-Lotus HB.T bike, specially designed for the Paris Olympics. He also wore a new skinsuit.
Earlier in the day, para-cyclist Will Bjergfelt broke an 11-year-old benchmark in the C5 UCI Hour Record. The Brit rode a distance of 51.471km, and became the first para-cyclist in history to break the 50km barrier.
There will be one further record attempt on Thursday afternoon, as part of the event organised by British Cycling; track sprinter Matthew Richardson will try to become the first rider to go below nine seconds in the flying 200m.
