The greatest distance covered in one hour currently stands at 55.548 km. This record was established by Great Britain’s Daniel Bigham - performance engineer for Filippo Ganna’s UCI WorldTeam INEOS Grenadiers – on 19 August, also at the velodrome in Grenchen.
Aged 26 and a specialist on the road and track, Filippo Ganna is considered one of the best time trial athletes of the current professional peloton. He has an impressive list of achievements: double UCI World Champion in the individual time trial (in Imola – Emilia-Romagna in 2020 and Flanders in 2021), he is reigning Olympic Champion in the team pursuit and four-time UCI World Champion in the individual pursuit (2016, 2018, 2019 et 2020).
Filippo Ganna declared: “I’m looking forward to taking this event on, even though it’s going to be an hour of pure suffering. It will be interesting to see how my body holds up, and just how far I can go. It’s a moment where you really get to test your physical and mental limits. To undertake a prestigious event like this is an important step in my career.
“I have been training on the new bike and it’s super-fast – I like it. It’s another step on from even the high level we’re already at with our equipment. The team puts so much time and effort into these projects, they’ve done their part now it’s my turn. I’m going to feel good stepping into that velodrome with that bike. Mentally that’ll already give me some extra metres.”
Men’s UCI Hour Record timed by Tissot:
19.08.2022: Daniel Bigham (GBR), Tissot Velodrome, Grenchen (SUI), 55.548 km
16.04.2019: Victor Campenaerts (BEL), Velodromo Bicentenario, Aguascalientes (MEX), 55.089 km
07.06.2015: Bradley Wiggins (GBR), Lee Valley VeloPark, London (GBR), 54.526 km
02.05.2015: Alex Dowsett (GBR), National Cycling Centre, Manchester (GBR), 52.937 km
08.02.2015: Rohan Dennis (AUS), Velodrome Suisse, Grenchen (SUI), 52.491 km
30.10.2014: Matthias Brändle (AUT), UCI World Cycling Centre, Aigle (SUI), 51.852 km
18.09.2014 : Jens Voigt (GER), Velodrome Suisse, Grenchen (SUI), 51.110 km.
The women’s UCI Hour Record timed by Tissot is held by the Netherlands’ Ellen van Dijk, who covered the distance of 49.254 kilometres on 23 May 2022 at the Tissot Velodrome in Grenchen.