Darren Kenny's Hour Record

Saturday, 8th January, 2005

The World Track Cup also saw 33 year old Darren Kenny, double Paralympic Gold Medallist on the Track and silver medallist in the combined road race and time trial, break the Hour Record for the disabled category of CP3. It was quite an astonishing ride by Darren who had his track coach Marshall Thomas track-side to guide him through the record attempt in front of a vociferous crowd who banged the boards as hard as they could to urge him on.

Speaking to me after an interview with the BBC, I asked Darren what that record meant to him because he seemed to go to hell and back to achieve it. "Its something I have wanted to do for a long time" he explained. "We started planning it seriously at the beginning of last year based on if everything went to plan in Athens but I never realised how unpleasant it actually is to do. It was horrible".

I then said he had great support and Darren couldn't jump in quick enough to say "it was fantastic. The noise was so loud, especially in the last fifteen minutes. At that point, you just so much want to get off the bike, stop or freewheel, but with all that screaming, it carries you along."

On the subject of testing prior to the record attempt, he said "We were doing twenty minute blocks, trying various paces. Marshall decides how fast I am going to go and what gear I am going to use and I just try and make sure I am fit enough to do what he tells me to do."

Darren also wanted to thank Garry Brickley, who is his conditioning coach and another well known hour record holder, Chris Boardman, who helped with his positioning at the start of the year. There are, Darren said, a lot of people who have helped him and he wants to thanks them all.

Finally, I asked how did the feeling on doing the Hour record, compare to winning medals, three in all, at Athens? "Its not the instant excitement" he says "but the noise in here. It was as loud, if not louder than Athens, and it feels really really good, but the ride was a hell of lot more unpleasant than Athens.

I also grabbed a quick word with Darren's GB Team coach, Marshall Thomas and his first reaction was "I'm really pleased for him. We hoped for 42 kilometres as the old record is 40.07 kilometres. We were sticking our neck out a bit with 42 km -- saying, wouldn't it be nice - so we did some trials within three track sessions. We were relying heavily on what he was doing at home and with that I was working with his coach Garry Brickley. So considering the number of sessions he had done, he finished only 200 metres down on what was quite an optimistic schedule."

"We knew that the way he would ride would be to get a head of his own schedule slightly and then just limit the losses and so the result was really good. And it's only January. What we hope will happen, and I speak for Darren and myself, is that this record will stimulate some interest from Javier Otxoa and start a 'war'. Darren is hoping that will happen to raise the profile of the sport. Which would be fantastic."