Will Bjergfelt from British Cycling on his world record

Speaking after the event, Will said: “[I feel] amazing, this is something I’ve worked for, for a long time. When we talked about world records at the start of the year it’s something I was very passionate about right from the get-go.

“I’ve wanted this for a really long time, before I was a para cyclist I wanted to have a crack at a world record. Growing up Jens Voigt was a massive hero of mine. He’s riding LEJOG in the UK at the moment for charity and watching him at the end of his world tour career crack 51k before I was a para cyclist, that was something I thought I would like to do one day as I was also a key domestique for a lot of the UCI teams that I’ve raced for over the years.

“Coming here with the best equipment; the Hope/Lotus bike, the Renishaw bars everything else that’s been afforded to me, the Ale custom skin suit, the support that we’ve had from Shell, GBCT, my employers GKN Aerospace where I’ve worked for the past 25 years, this is something that means so much to me.

“I’ve wanted this for so long its worth putting myself through torturous training sessions throughout the summer in full winter kit indoors, on my turbo trainer with no fan to try and accumulate the time in position, or on my TT bike in the heat – today is just the reward for the hard work I’ve put in and its thanks to everyone behind the scenes at the Great Britain Cycling Team who have put all the hard work into putting me on the best equipment to do the best performance I could do today.

I want to thank everyone – my family for the sacrifice that they’ve afforded me as well right the way through my whole career.

How did it play out?

“I actually woke up at about 4 o’clock this morning to the morning prayer and I was thinking about it, originally I was going to go in 10 minute blocks and break it down into six blocks but then when I thought about it through the night I thought five minute blocks are more what I’m used to in terms of pursuit; it’s what I’ve been doing for GBCT over the years.

“At the same time every third lap I was getting an average split so I was able to really control my pace. My coach Ben Brown sets me best average efforts on my TT bike so those efforts over the past 2.5 years have really played into what I did today where I started steady, built into the effort, sustained it and then got faster towards the end. And I think that’s the perfect way to do an hour.”

How did the last 20 mins feel?

“Unchartered territory to a degree. I’ve never done the full hour on the track before although I’ve done at couple of 25 mile time trials over the past couple of weeks. I did the CTT national time trail championships two weeks ago and I rode the R253H a few days before I came out here so knowing that I could sustain the power that I needed to sustain to crack 50k for the 25 mile time trials that I’ve been doing build a lot of confident into myself that today coming here in the conditions that we had, I’d be good for a good distance.”

Sum up how you’re feeling?

“Amazing, its not quite sunk in yet really. Whilst I was going round the track and everyone was cheering at the end there, it started to hit home. I don’t think it’s quite hit home yet that I’ve smashed the world record on the track and that’s a dream come true.”