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Australian rider Bridie O’Donnell sets new women’s UCI one-hour record in Adelaide, Australia

The UCI one-hour record has a new high water mark, set by Australian rider Bridie O'Donnell, who rode 46.882 kilometres in sixty minutes at Adelaide, Australia's Super-Drome.

January 22, 2016
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The UCI one-hour record has a new high water mark, set by Australian rider Bridie O’Donnell, 41, who rode 46.882 kilometres in sixty minutes at Adelaide, Australia’s Super-Drome.

O’Donnell’s record-setting ride coincided with the 2016 Tour Down Under.

The previous women’s record was set four months ago by Molly Shaffer Van Howeling, a cyclist from the United States, who clocked 46.274 kilometres in Aquascalientes, Mexico. O’Donnell’s stab at breaking the record was the third since late 2014, when the UCI simplified the rules involved. Those changes authorized a broader use of bikes that comply with the regulations for endurance track events, inviting several attempts over the last year.

During the course of the last 10 years, O’Donnell has had many other notable, international successes to which she adds her record-breaking ride in Adelaide. She represented her home country at three UCI road world championships, and appeared on twelve podiums at the Australian and Oceania championships. Breaking the hour record, reports said, came after a committed and intense twelve-month training process, but there’s more than just her fitness she credits.

“All this wouldn’t have been possible without the crowd,” she said, “and the team that supported me throughout the prokect. I can’t believe I broke a world record.” She described herself as nervous before the challenge, but it was the support she received, she said, that made all the difference in meeting it. “Today people reassured me, telling me that it was all about the pacing. I tried to focus on that and not be distracted by anything else,” the new record-holder said.

After the track had cooled down a bit, UCI president Brian Cookson remarked on O’Donnell’s ride, and gave particular attention to its importance to the Tour Down Under’s host country—as well as for female riders worldwide.

“With the likes of Rohan Dennis and Jack Bobridge on the men’s side,” Cookson said, referring to other Australian attempts at breaking the record, “and now Bridie [O’Donnell], Australia is putting itself at the forefront when it comes to taking on the UCI hour record. I hope that other women riders will come forward to go against what is in many senses the purest record of all.”