Hour Record: Ganna on trial at over 56 times out of 35 ‘

The preparation is done, the pressure begins to rise, the big day is approaching. On Tuesday morning, Pippo Ganna found the Montichiari velodrome a little too crowded for his tastes, so he preferred to take a nice walk in Valtenesi, the Brescia side of Lake Garda. In recent days, however, in a timed test of 35 minutes the Piedmontese champion has lapped at an average of 56.150 km. Today track tests in the race set-up of the quartet, because after the Record attempt scheduled for Saturday evening at 20, the World Championship is at the gates with a world and Olympic title to defend. In Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the gateway to Paris, the final for gold is scheduled for Thursday 13th evening.

The Jersey In Montichiari, Ganna also “presented” the shirt she will wear on Saturday via social media. In the warm-up, however, because for the great challenge the BioRacer has prepared a tailor-made super-technological bodysuit that should have the same graphics: black background with three tricolor stripes on the front; behind all black with a tricolor trail in the middle of its “TopGanna” logo. Before leaving for Verbania, where he lives and where he spent the night, Pippo entrusted himself to the hands of Piero Baffi, his masseur.

Travel Tomorrow morning, Thursday, with manager Giovanni Lombardi at the helm, Pippo will face the almost four-hour journey to Switzerland. On Friday, from 11 to 13, contact with the Record ring. It will not be a trivial moment, far from it: it will be necessary to choose the ratio with which to go hunting for Dan Bigham who on August 19th on the same track brought the distance to 55.548 km. But probably the real goal is much further, those 56.375 km that Chris Boardman covered on 6 September 1996 in Manchester, considered by the UCI “Best human performance on the hour” but since 2000, with the new regulations, no more Records .