Chris Boardman

Early life and amateur career

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.

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.

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

Professional career

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. 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. In 1993 Boardman established the fastest time for a bicycle around the 37.73 mile Snaefell Mountain Course, the course used for the Isle of Man TT Races. Riding a specially modified bicycle, Boardman recorded a time of 1hr 23min 54secs. The time recorded would prove to be the longest standing cycling record on the Isle of Man, until it was beaten by Peter Kennaugh in 2015. Kennaugh, riding a standard racing bicycle, beat the record by six seconds.

Boardman competed with Graeme Obree for the hour record 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. Boardman won fame by winning the prologue of the 1994 Tour de France with what was then the fastest time ever recorded. In the process he caught Luc Leblanc, who had previously been dismissive about Boardman's 1993 hour record, claiming that it could probably be beaten by half the professional peloton. However he subsequently 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, Boardman 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. Boardman won bronze in the 52 km Time trial at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He did not defend his 4 km title.

In 1998 Tour de France, when the Tour began in Dublin, Ireland, Boardman won the prologue but crashed out of the race 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.

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. 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.

Boardman's preparation for the Time trial at the 2000 Olympics was affected by missing the 2000 Tour de France due to sinus problems. Boardman came eleventh in the time trial.

Boardman retired after the Olympics, at the age of 32. 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, and is a contributor to cycling programmes on both BBC and ITV.

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.

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. In July 2016, his mother Carol died as a result of a collision with a Mitsubishi L200 pickup truck while cycling in Connah's Quay.

Major results

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Awards and honours