Cycling: Rominger breaks one-hour record

The Swiss cyclist Tony Rominger smashed the world one-hour record held by his arch-rival Miguel Indurain in Bordeaux yesterday. Rominger, a novice at indoor track racing, covered 53.832km, a huge 792m more than the Spanish cyclist. It was the 33-year-old Rominger's first attempt at the mark, carried out behind closed doors and only regarded as a warm-up before a serious attempt next month. Indurain, the four-times Tour de France winner who destroyed Rominger's dream of winning the race this year, had set a new mark of 53.040km at the same track on 2 September, beating the Scot Graeme Obree's 52.713km recorded in April. 'I knew I would beat it it,' Rominger said after his record bid, and added that he aimed to increase it to 55 kms next month at altitude in Mexico or Quito. 'I had so much strength left in the end that I think I could have accelerated. I did not suffer as much as I did in recent road time trials,' he said. Rominger, who rode roughly a second faster than Indurain every kilometre, later said that yesterday's attempt was not as improvised as it seemed. The Swiss has been advised for the past eight years by an Italian doctor, Michele Ferrari. 'For eight years, Ferrari has given me all the clues to beat the record,' Rominger said. 'I think I can cover one or one and a half kilometres more,' he said of next month's record bid. But Ferrari was not so optimistic: 'Fifty-five kms at altitude will be very hard to reach. Only a duel between Indurain and Rominger may lead us there,' he said.

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