hour.
It would have been a special way to bow out adding the hour record to his already impressive palmares.
Olympic golds on both track and road, world titles on both track and road, Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris – Nice and of course the Tour de France and now the hour record.
Now it still could be the fitting end as he’s left the carrot dangling. There’s the Olympics in Rio, which he he got another track gold would be a fine way to end a career. But setting a distance of 54.526km in the hour he passed Alex Dowsett’s month old record by “only” a k and a half, probably due to the high air pressure at the Olympic velodrome, he didn’t absolutely obliterate it.
So Dowsett, after some whinging about fair play from his manager which he got all wrong, is looking to take the record back. Others maybe also looking at it, though you feel Tony Martin with no real great track experience and having a day job might not be the shoo-in everyone thinks.
So post Rio that record set on Sunday could be gone but none far enough gone to rule out making a second attempt at a distance that’ll rival or surpass Chris Boardman’s “Superman” effort and put the record out of sight..