Indurain fails to set record

Cycling

Cycling

There was a rare failure for Miguel Indurain yesterday when his attempt to break cycling's one hour track record flopped in Bogota, Colombia. The Spaniard retired after 31 minutes.

Indurain had set out to regain the record taken away from him last year by Switzerland's Tony Rominger, who rode 53.832km in Bordeaux in October and then bettered the record to 55.291 two weeks later.

Indurain never looked like overtaking Rominger's mark. He was slightly ahead of the pace set by Rominger after the first five laps but then began slipping behind. Indurain's average speed after 15 minutes was 54.040kph, dropping to 53.809 kph after 25 minutes. He eventually retired after 28km which he completed in 31 minutes 16.41 seconds, when he was nearly 50 seconds behind Rominger's pace.

Almost 6,000 fans packed Bogota's velodrome to cheer him on.