Ellen van Dijk has made history by setting a new women’s hour world record on Monday.
The 35-year-old Dutchwoman raced 49.254km in 60 minutes at the Velodrome Suisse in Switzerland, beating Joss Lowden’s record – set in September last year – by 848 metres.
Time trial world champion Van Dijk passed Lowden’s record in the 58th minute of her attempt.
“This is actually quite different from a time trial,” she said.
“For an hour you just see a thick black line on the track. It’s a real challenge and I spoke a great deal with the team psychologist.
“At 45 minutes I thought, ‘OK, I need to accelerate’. I thought I was accelerating but I think I was only slowing down. That meant that this was it for today and I am very happy that I broke the record.”
