Ganna puts Hour Record out of reach
James Davis reports on a stunning assault on the Hour Record from INEOS Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna.
Sports Gazette journalist James Davis looks at Filippo Ganna’s record-breaking exploits.
There’s not much point going cycling for an hour any more.
To caveat that statement: a pootle through the park with children and dog in tow? Wonderful. Feel like a fast hour with your mates after work? Go for it.
However, an hour’s cycling around a velodrome, attempting the UCI Hour Record in its current iteration (the ‘unified’ rules that have been in place since 2014), at the top end of human performance is most certainly done for.
On October 8th, 26-year-old Filippo Ganna obliterated the hour record at the Velodrome Suisse, posting 56.792 kilometres in an attempt that never looked in any doubt.
The attempt started off sedately, with the first part of the hour constituting the final section of the Italian’s warmup, but before long it was certain.
A man unlike any other we’ve seen in recent memory was going to produce a performance of the same calibre, and Dan Bigham’s record of 55.548 kilometres was to be broken in some style.
As a sporting discipline, time trialling is inherently odd. Borne out of avoiding police interference in cycle racing, it began outside of the mainstream, and has continued a rather proud residence there for over a century.
The UCI ‘Best Human Effort’, an ‘anything goes’ precursor to the record in its current format, existed in a time when garden shed creations could be world-beating.
Record attempts consisted of one-thirds cycling, two-thirds contortionism, as storied greats forced themselves into positions that would cause a slipped disc in spectators if viewed for too long.
Chris Boardman’s record in that category was eclipsed with around 30 seconds to go during Ganna’s attempt, his 56.375 kilometres almost two whole laps shorter than the Italian’s new marker.
Best? Undoubtedly. Human? Half mortal, half combustion engine. Effort? Only for the last five minutes or so, professes Ganna.
We have come a long way since the days of Boardman, Obree, and Indurain. A Ganna-style setup will cost you around €75,000, and that’s before you employ enough aerodynamicists to staff a lower level Formula 1 team.
To reduce a record like this to componentry and wind tunnel testing is a reduction too far, however; there is of course the human element.
At present the INEOS Grenadiers rider has 22 professional wins, 20 of those coming in time trials. Of the two that fall outside of that domain, the first sticks in the mind.
On Stage 5 of the 2020 Giro d’Italia, the Piedmont native found himself in a healthy breakaway group from 180 kilometres out.
Ganna is presumably the ideal breakaway companion. A wide frame to draft behind and legs with more horsepower than your family hatchback sound attractive, until both of those features power away from you effortlessly on a first category climb.
The two-time World Champion maintained a gap of a minute on a peloton bustling with lithe climbers who would make his 83 kilograms look positively portly, going on to take the victory by 34 seconds.
To win on that day requires a complete defiance of all of cycling convention, and allowed those watching to first pose the question that is now asked anew: Surely he can’t do that, can he?
Time trialling is the domain of the perfectionist. Though you might be liable to express anything with a microphone thrust in your face after the hardest 60 minutes of your life, Ganna pondered that “next time, maybe [he’d] try in another part of [the] season, maybe with more fresh legs.”
The head tempers the heart in these cases. Less than 48 hours on (and potentially influenced by a tender undercarriage), Ganna walked his comments back, suggesting that he thought he’d “never do [it] again”, and a second attempt would be best left “before going to retire like Wiggins.”
I will say this, at this rate I have the feeling Ganna only wants to do the hour record once #UCIHourRecord
— Alex Dowsett (@alexdowsett) October 8, 2022
Before the record, such was the inevitability surrounding it, it felt as though the only man who could beat Ganna was himself.
Post-record, the same is truer than ever. It seems the only man now capable of beating 56,792 metres is Ganna.
Cycling is currently replete with young talent, and the likes of Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, and Mathieu van der Poel have all shown their time trialling credentials in recent years, but it is hard to fathom them coming close to such a mark.
As time goes on, marginal gains will become even more marginal, humpback-whale inspired design will give way to the next greatest offering of the animal kingdom, and on some far flung corner of the Earth, another bullet-human hybrid will be born and go on to challenge everything we think we know about moving quickly on two wheels.
For now however, this moment, and most likely this decade, belongs to Ganna.
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