If you thought Tadej Pogačar’s fifth Il Lombardia victory in a row was impressive, imagine a rider winning the same event, back to back, 16 times.
That was the streak that British para-cyclist Jody Cundy secured at the UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janerio, Brazil on Thursday, when he won yet another gold medal in the kilometre time trial.
Cundy was 27 years old when he won his first world title in 2006. With no championships held in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2021, he has now gone two decades undefeated in the event. Winning his latest, now aged 47, he said came as a “bit of a surprise”.
“I can’t quite believe it. 16 world titles back to back in the 1km Time Trial, blows my mind to think about that,” he wrote on Instagram.
“In 2006 when I won my first title I could never imagine still pulling on the rainbow bands today, 19 years later. And to think a few weeks ago I didn’t even think I was going to go to the Worlds, I’ve really struggled this year mentally and physically and thought that my age was finally catching up with me… But something has clicked in the last few months and today is the culmination of that.”
A former swimmer, Cundy won his first of nine Paralympic gold medals in the pool at the 1996 Atlanta Games. He transitioned to cycling in 2006, and has since won 22 world titles on the track, becoming known as the King of the Kilo.
He competes in the C4 classification with a prosthetic leg, having had his right foot amputated when he was three due to a birth deformity.
“About two months ago, I really was to the point where I probably wasn’t going to come, I just hadn’t had a great year at all and nothing seemed to be sticking,” Cundy said in Rio.
“Hopefully this is the start of a renaissance, but I’m not going to count my chickens too soon, as I know only too well how it can go just as quickly as it came.”
Cundy’s kilo gold was one of six medals won by British riders on the first night of the Para-cycling Track Worlds. The 47-year-old posted a time of 1:03.872 in the event, more than two seconds off his 2014 world record, but 1.7 seconds ahead of his team-mate Archie Atkinson, who took silver.
Blaine Hunt also earned silver in the C5 kilo, while there were bronze medals for Fin Graham in the C3 sprint, Matthew Robertson in the C2 scratch, and the tandem team sprint team of Lizzi Jordan, Dannielle Khan, James Ball and Steff Lloyd.
Para-cycling classifications rank athletes by their physical impairment; the lower the number, the greater the impairment.
Explore More
