58.875! Tournant breaks the minute barrier
Frenchman Arnaud Tournant shattered his own world record for the kilometer on Wednesday morning, becoming the first cyclist to go under the one-minute mark for the distance. Tournant was one of three French riders making record attempts on Wednesday at the velodrome in La Paz, Bolivia, at an altitude of over 11,000 feet. Tournant turned in a time of 58.875 seconds, an average speed of 61.146kph (37.9mph). "Right now, I can’t believe it," said Tournant, originally from Roubaix in northern France. "I simply wanted to go under a minute. A time of 59.99 would have sufficed." Tournant beat his
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By VeloNews Interactive wire services, Copyright 2001 AFP
Frenchman Arnaud Tournant shattered his own world record for the kilometer on Wednesday morning, becoming the first cyclist to go under the one-minute mark for the distance. Tournant was one of three French riders making record attempts on Wednesday at the velodrome in La Paz, Bolivia, at an altitude of over 11,000 feet. Tournant turned in a time of 58.875 seconds, an average speed of 61.146kph (37.9mph).
“Right now, I can’t believe it,” said Tournant, originally from Roubaix in northern France. “I simply wanted to go under a minute. A time of 59.99 would have sufficed.”
Tournant beat his previous record, 1:00.148 set in Mexcio City on June 16, 2000.
Tournant’s countryman, Arnaud Dublé, set the flying-start 500 meter record just before Tournant took the track, with a time of 25.850 seconds, beating the mark of 26.649 set by Alexandre Kiritchenko in 1988.
The third record attemt, Laurent Gané’s try at the flying-start 200 meter record, came to an abrubt end when Gané crashed, fracturing his clavicle.