On August 19, in the heart of the scorching summer, Dan Bigham, a former track racer who became a performance engineer for Ineos-Grenadier, the Ganna team, created a sensation by covering 55.548 kilometers in one hour on the Granges track, beating the record of Victor Campenaerts which has held since April 2019.

An incredible feat for the 31-year-old Briton, totally unknown outside the velodromes, who was initially only supposed to collect information in anticipation of Ganna's attempt...

Suffice to say that Ganna better not miss Saturday (8:00 p.m.) on the same track and the same bike, custom-made by Pinarello with a 3D printed frame that uses biomimicry to increase its aerodynamic performance with reliefs inspired by tubers present on the fins of whales.

Beyond the car, which must necessarily be efficient given the tour de force of its engineer, Ganna puts forward solid arguments: world champion in the time trial in 2020 and 2021, quadruple world champion in the individual pursuit and champion Olympic pursuit team, the 26-year-old Piedmontese has been the benchmark for the time trial in recent years.

But this season, he was above all disappointed: only seventh in the time trial of the World Road Championships in Australia, he was also beaten at the European Championships and in the two times of the Tour de France.

If he admits going a little into the unknown in terms of form, he passed a promising test on Monday at the Montchiari velodrome, rolling for 35 minutes at around 56 km / h on average.

"Yes, but tomorrow it will be 60 minutes and it's not exactly the same thing. Maybe after 36 minutes I'll want to die!", Underlined Friday the runner who expects to suffer a lot on the bike.

"Tomorrow, I will have to make the biggest effort of my life", he insisted during a video press conference where he confided his "dream" of beating Chris Boardman's old record (56.375 km), erased from the shelves after a hardware regulation change.

In Italy, it is expected at the turn.

Especially since a controversy erupted over the date chosen for his attempt.

"Inappropriate Concomitance"

Initially scheduled for the month of August, Ganna, tired out of the Tour de France, had postponed it to October 8, which coincides with the Tour of Lombardy, the last great classic of the season.

"An inappropriate concomitance", regretted RCS Sport, organizer of the Lombard race, who asked, in vain, Ganna to find another date.

Filippo Ganna in training on the eve of the 1st stage of the Tour de France, June 30, 2022 in Holte (Denmark) Marco BERTORELLO AFP

The call was relayed by the great Francesco Moser, the man who in 1984 had broken the hour record belonging for twelve years to Eddy Merckx.

"Ganna should have waited until the end of the Worlds on track", next week in Saint-Quentin-en Yvelines, near Paris.

"There would have been no more races and his attempt would have had all the attention in the world," he said in the Gazzetta dello sport.

But at Ineos we reply that the velodrome was not available before, that there are the Worlds on the track behind, where Ganna must line up, and that then it will be "too late for a runner who has run all the season".

As for waiting until 2023, that wasn't an option either since a rule change regarding the handlebars would have meant throwing away all the efforts to develop the bike that Ganna will be using.

Go for Saturday night then.

But the pressure will be maximum.

"He must beat his engineer's record, otherwise it will be really messy," insists Francesco Moser.

© 2022 AFP