100 years old, 100 km and a record broken

davidof
davidof Posts: 3,124
edited September 2012 in Amateur race
LYON (Reuters) - At nearly 101 years, Robert Marchand became on Friday the fastest cyclist hundred year old cyclist in the world over 100 km with an average of more than 23 km / h.

"I did better than I expected," he said, barely out of breath, recalling that his goal was to keep to 22.5 km / h over the 300 laps of Lyon's banked outdoor velodrome.

"Robert Marchand, 100 km, 4 hrs 17 min 27 sec, avg 23.305 km / h" could be read on a sign held up by this perky grandpa minutes after crossing the finish line at the Velodrome Lyon.

This former firefighter from Paris already has already done the distance on the road, especially during the cycling trips in the Ardeche, or even on the Paris-Cambrai or Allier cyclosportif.

This dry little man of 51 kilos has a strong will and made up his mind last June to attempt the record and has been training every day.

One more challenge, on the 26th November 2012 Robert Marchand will attempt to blow out the 101 candles on his cake.

The former gymnastics and boxing champion came late to cycling, taking up the sport at 68 years and reckons he's covered nearly 500,000 kilometers since then.

He lives alone, drives a car, prepares his own meals and doesn't have home help. Doctors have become interested in his case and monitor him every 3 months. "They told me I have the body of a 55 year old man. Researchers believe that it is genetic". Marchand has his own explanation "I have never smoked but otherwise I didn't go without neither wine nor food, nor women. But always in moderation."

"I've never touched doping. Perhaps if I did I could reach 35km / h."

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20 ... a-cle.html
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