Chris Boardman

Chris Boardman

File:Chris Boardman 2010.jpg Boardman in 2010
Personal information
Full name	Christopher Miles Boardman
Nickname	The Professor
Born	(1968-08-26) 26 August 1968 Hoylake, Merseyside, England
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	70 kg (150 lb; 11 st 0 lb)
Team information
Discipline	Road and track
Rider type	Time trialist
Amateur team(s)
–	Birkenhead Victoria CC
–	Manchester Wheelers' Club
–	GS Strada
–	North Wirral Velo Club-Kodak
Professional team(s)
1993–1998	GAN
1999–2000	Crédit Agricole
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 3 individual stages (1994, 1997, 1998) Stage races Critérium International (1996) Time trials Duo Normand (1993, 1999) Chrono des Nations (1993, 1996) World Time Trial Championship (1994) Grand Prix des Nations (1996) Hour record Best human effort (1993, 1996) UCI Hour Record (2000)
Medal record Representing England Commonwealth Games Edinburgh 1986 Team pursuit Auckland 1990 Team pursuit Auckland 1990 Team time trial Representing Great Britain Olympic Games Track cycling 1992 Barcelona Individual pursuit Road bicycle racing 1996 Atlanta Time trial World Championships Track cycling 1994 Palermo Individual pursuit 1996 Manchester Individual pursuit 1993 Hamar Individual pursuit Road bicycle racing 1994 Agrigento Time trial 1996 Lugano Time trial 1997 San Sebastian Time trial 1999 Treviso Time trial

Christopher Miles Boardman, MBE, (born 26 August 1968) is a British former racing cyclist who won an individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics, broke the world hour record three times, and won three stages and wore the yellow jersey on three separate occasions at the Tour de France. In 1992, he was awarded an MBE for services to cycling.

Boardman's nickname is "The Professor", for his meticulous attention to detail in preparation and training, and his technical know-how. He had an altitude tent built in his house to help him prepare for the hour record attempt, although in an interview he claimed that all it did was help him focus. Boardman focused on interval training. He was a keen user of power measuring devices. For his winning ways in time trials and prologues of stage races, he was also nicknamed "Mr. Prologue".

Boardman is also notable for having used the Lotus 108 time trial bicycle designed by Mike Burrows and made by the sports car manufacturer Lotus. Later he worked with the UK carbon fibre bike specialist Hotta, to produce other time-trial frame designs, which he raced in various events including world championships, and Olympic games. He is now involved in producing commercial and competition bikes with the Boardman Bikes and Boardman Elite ventures.

Early life

He was educated at Hilbre High School in Wirral, Merseyside, and rode in his first bike race at the age of 13. He was on the national cycling team by the age of 16.

Career

UK time trial

Boardman won his first national RTTC time trial title in the 1984 "GHS" schoolboy 10-mile championship and subsequently won the 1986 junior 25-mile championship. He also broke the junior 25-mile national record in 1984.

As a senior he won four consecutive hill climb championships (from 1988 to 1991), five consecutive 25-mile championships (from 1989 to 1993), the 50-mile championship in 1991 and 1992, and the men's British time trial championship in 2000. He broke the record for 25 miles in 1992 and 1993 with 45 minutes 57 seconds (which he held until 2009) on a course based on the A34 near Oxford. He was also a member of the winning North Wirral Velo team in the 1993 100 km team time trial championship (in a record time of 2:00:07), having previously won the event three times with Manchester Wheelers' Club, in 1988, 1989 and 1991.

Professional career and Tour de France

Having started his cycling career as a time trial specialist, he turned professional with the GAN team, later renamed the Crédit Agricole team, of manager Roger Legeay of France. His first race as a professional was the 1993 Grand Prix Eddy Merckx, a 66 km time trial which he won. He further won several stages of the Midi Libre and Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré stage races, including the final road stage.

He won fame by winning the prologue of the 1994 Tour de France with what was then the fastest time ever recorded, but lost the yellow jersey in a team time trial. He was hailed as the UK's future Tour de France winner, despite his own insistence that it was a long shot. After retirement he said he was not able to recover from the rigours of stage racing due to a low hormone profile. "I've always had it, it's probably been that way since I was born, but because of the type of racing that I did in the past, it was not a problem."

In the 1995 Tour de France, he crashed at the prologue and was forced to quit. The 1996 Tour de France saw him make a timid return in the wet and rainy prologue where he was beaten by Alex Zülle and finished in second place. However, he made a comeback in the 1997 Tour de France by winning the prologue of the Tour again, although a crash forced him to quit on stage 13.

In 1998 Tour de France, when the Tour began in Dublin, Ireland, he won the prologue but crashed on stage 2 while wearing the yellow jersey. In 1998 he was diagnosed with osteopenia due to low testosterone levels. Treatment to prevent worsening in this condition would have required him to take testosterone, which is banned under anti-doping rules. The UCI, in the wake of the Festina doping scandal, refused to allow Boardman an exemption on medical grounds. Faced with either retiring to allow treatment for his osteoporosis, or continuing to cycle without taking testosterone, Boardman chose to continue in cycling untreated for a further two years, hoping to finish his career on a high note at the 2000 Summer Olympics.

His preparation was affected by missing the 1999 Tour de France due to sinus problems. Boardman came eleventh in the time trial at the 2000 Olympics. He retired after the Olympics, at the age of 32.

Hour record

File:Lotus Type 108 - LotusSport bicycle.jpg

The Lotus 108 bicycle Boardman used to set a new hour record in 1996

Boardman is famous for his hour record. The 1990s saw him compete with Graeme Obree using radically modified time-trial bikes, beating each other's records in turn; in one eight-month period in 1994 the record fell four times. The Union Cycliste Internationale finally modified the regulations, mandating use of a traditional racing bicycle, similar to the one used by Eddy Merckx to establish the Hour Record in the 1970s. Chris Boardman made his attempt at the Hour Record using this new ruling and succeeded in 2000 riding 49.441 km, just 10 m further than Merckx's 28-year-old record.

Olympics

Boardman rode a Lotus 108 in the 4 km pursuit at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Lotus Engineering's 'uni-axle' design incorporated several new features. Boardman caught Germany's Jens Lehmann, the 1991 World Champion, in the Olympic final.

Boardman won bronze in the 52 km time trial at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He did not defend his 4 km title.

Retirement

In an interview Boardman admitted that the last two years of his professional career were the most difficult, especially because of his debilitating condition and marital issues. Boardman was diagnosed with osteoporosis by the time he was 30, a condition which is uncommon for someone as young as he was. He was criticised for not realising his potential, but in response he said that, "I never considered myself particularly gifted, but I managed to stretch and mould the ability that I have, and found a niche for myself."

Personal life

Boardman lives with his wife and six children in his native Wirral. Since retirement from professional cycling he has presented for ITV's cycling coverage and currently has a brand of cycles and accessories under the name Boardman Bikes. He is also involved in producing competition cycles through Boardman Elite.

Boardman was appointed a technical adviser to the British road and track cycling team in 2004, and was equipment and technical manager to the TeamGB cyclists at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

In 2009 Boardman took part in the London marathon, finishing in 3hrs 19min 27sec. He was also inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame.

In 2012 Boardman commentated alongside Hugh Porter for the BBC on the cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

He is an advocate of policies to greatly increase utility cycling in the United Kingdom, citing the potential to reduce the 35,000 annual deaths from obesity-related diseases, and urging that in road traffic accidents there be a presumption of guilt on the driver of the larger vehicle.

Boardman appeared on the BBC Top Gear TV show in Series 21, Episode 5 (2 March 2014) in his role as a British Cycling policy advisor in the "Make a commercial for reducing cycle-related accidents" feature.

Career achievements

Major results

Source:

1986

3rd Team pursuit, Commonwealth Games

1988

1st National Hill Climb Championship

1989

1st National Hill Climb Championship

1st Individual pursuit, National Amateur Track Championships

1990

1st National Hill Climb Championship

Commonwealth Games

3rd Team pursuit

3rd Team time trial

1991

1st National Hill Climb Championship

1st Individual pursuit, National Amateur Track Championships

1992

1st Individual pursuit, Olympic Games

1st Individual pursuit, National Amateur Track Championships

1993

1st Chrono des Nations

1st Duo Normand (with Laurent Bezault)

1st Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

3rd Individual pursuit, Track World Championships

4th Grand Prix des Nations

1994

1st Individual pursuit, Track World Championships

1st Time trial, Road World Championships

Tour de France

1st Prologue

Held Yellow after Prologue–Stage 2

1st Prologue & Stages 3 & 7 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré

1st Stage 6 Tour de Suisse

1st Stages 1 & 6 Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia

3rd GP Karlsruhe (with Pascal Lance)

1995

1st Stage 4 Four Days of Dunkirk

1st Stage 6 Grand Prix du Midi Libre

2nd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Liberé

1st Prologue

2nd Overall Tour de Picardie

1st Stage 3b

1996

1st Chrono des Nations

1st Duo Normand (with Paul Manning)

1st Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

1st Individual pursuit, Track World Championships

1st Grand Prix des Nations

1st LuK Challenge Chrono (with Uwe Peschel)

1st Overall Critérium International

1st Stage 3 Four Days of Dunkirk

1st Stage 2 Route du Sud

2nd Time trial, Road World Championships

3rd Overall Paris–Nice

1st Stage 8b

3rd Overall Tour de Picardie

3rd Time trial, Olympic Games

4th Grand Prix du Midi Libre

5th Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Liberé

1st Prologue

7th Overall Tour Méditerranéen

1997

1st Prologue Volta a Catalunya

1st Prologue Critérium du Dauphiné Liberé

1st Prologue Tour de France

1st Stage 5b Vuelta a la Comunitat Valenciana

2nd Overall Tour de Romandie

1st Prologue & Stage 6

3rd Time trial, Road World Championships

3rd Grand Prix des Nations

5th Overall Tour of the Basque Country

1998

1st Prologue & Stage 5 Volta a Catalunya

1st Prologue & Stage 4 Critérium du Dauphiné Liberé

1st Prologue Tour de France

2nd Overall Prutour

1st Prologue & Stage 1

4th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

8th Chrono des Nations

1999

1st Prologue Paris–Nice

1st Stage 3 Critérium International

1st Stage 2b Prutour

1st GP Karlsruhe (with Jens Voigt)

1st Duo Normand (with Jens Voigt)

1st LuK Challenge Chrono (with Jens Voigt)

2nd Grand Prix des Nations

3rd Time trial, Road World Championships

3rd Grand Prix Eddy Merckx (with Jens Voigt)

8th Chrono des Nations

2000

2nd Grand Prix Eddy Merckx (with Jens Voigt)

4th Time trial, Road World Championships

6th Chrono des Nations

World records

Discipline	Record	Date	Event	Velodrome	Track	Ref
4 km individual pursuit	4:27.357	27 July 1992	Olympic Games	D'Horta (Barcelona)	Open air
	4:24.496	27 July 1992
Hour record	52.270 km	23 July 1993	—	Bordeaux	Indoor
4 km individual pursuit	4:27.357	28 August 1996	World Championships	Manchester
	4:24.496	29 August 1996
Hour record	56.375 km	6 September 1996	—
	49.441 km	27 October 2000	—

Awards and honours

• Bidlake Memorial Prize: 1992
• Sports Journalists' Association Pat Besford Award: 1992
• Member of the Order of the British Empire: 1993
• British Cycling Hall of Fame: 2010

External links

• Official website
• Chris Boardman at Cycling Archives

Records
Preceded by Eddy Merckx	UCI hour record (49.441 km) 27 October 2000 – 19 July 2005	Succeeded by Ondřej Sosenka