Published October 14, 2022 07:27PM
New world record: Filippo Ganna breaks the 4 km individual pursuit
Ganna adds the pursuit record to the Hour Record to cap a glorious week.
Italy's Filippo Ganna competes to win the Men's Individual Pursuit finals during the UCI Track Cycling World Championships at the Velodrome of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, southwest of Paris, on October 14, 2022. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP) (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Less than a week since putting the UCI World Hour Record into almost untouchable territory, Filippo Ganna has added the 4 km individual pursuit to his haul of world records.
The Italian Olympic team pursuit gold medalist clocked a time of 3:59:636 in the 4 km pursuit final at the Track World Championships. Ganna’s time makes him the second person to break the four-minute barrier and takes three-tenths of a second off Ashton Lambie’s previous benchmark.
Lambie had taken to the boards of the velodrome in Aguascalientes, Mexico in August 2021 for a targeted assault on the world record. Lambie became the first person to crack the four-minute barrier and backed it up with a world title just two months later, beating Jonathan Milan in the final. Fast forward twelve months and Ganna has set a new world record in the final of this year’s world championships in his second individual pursuit ride of the day and following three team pursuit rides in two days on his way to a silver medal with the Italian team just 24 hours ago.
Ganna was back on his Hour Record Pinarello Bolide F HR 3D and was using much of the same equipment that proved so successful less than a week ago. The effort tonight was a full 56 minutes shorter than last week’s 56.792 km Hour Record, but Ganna was no less impressive, not only claiming a new world record but doing so at a “sea level” velodrome without the benefit of altitude in such a high-speed event.
Ganna once again rode his preferred negative split strategy, and despite starting faster than his qualifying round this morning, he was a full 1.5 seconds down at the 500 m mark. From there on Ganna steadily rode down his Italian teammate Jonathan Milan who eventually finished with a 4:03:790, just over four seconds back and in a time that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
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Xavier Disley of Aerocoach tweeted this insight into that negative split pacing, showing Ganna not only got his pacing almost perfect but also hit a top speed of 63.9 kph on the penultimate lap.
This story is developing, check back for more.