4 laps, flat out, from a standing begin. Legs and lungs screaming, lactic acid constructing.
The kilo, observe biking’s one-kilometre time trial, has a punishing status.
And but Jody Cundy has been placing himself via it for many years.
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“On the finish of it, your legs do not need to pedal. You are combating the whole lot,” he tells BBC Sport. “However if you get it proper, it is actually cool.”
Cundy is king of the kilo. On the Para-cycling Observe World Championships, he has been unbeaten within the occasion since 2006.
If he wins once more at this yr’s version – which begins on Thursday in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands – it can mark his twentieth straight yr within the rainbow jersey.
Not dangerous for somebody who has simply turned 48 years previous.
“It is a pretty dominant run,” he mentioned. “There have been some moments the place I believed it wasn’t going to occur and by some means I’ve pulled one thing out of the bag.
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“However I get older and the rivals are getting youthful. It may be very arduous to maintain that unbeaten run.
“As a lot as I might like to do it, the folks I’ve to race this yr…I am in hassle.”
A few of that “hassle” comes from throughout the Nice Britain squad.
Archie Atkinson, 22, was eight years from being born when Cundy received his first Paralympic gold medal – as a swimmer – at Atlanta 1996. Atkinson was simply two when Cundy first turned world champion as a bicycle owner, after switching sports activities.
“One in all my first races was towards him,” mentioned Atkinson. “That felt fairly particular.
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“This man was Paralympic champion, world champion and held a world document on the time.”
However Atkinson is catching up. Final yr he beat Cundy on the Nationwide Observe Championships, solely to be overwhelmed in flip by Cundy on the World Championships a couple of months later.
“I need to win,” Atkinson mentioned. “But when he wins, it is historic. There aren’t many individuals who can win for 20 years.”
Along with his world titles, Cundy is a six-time biking Paralympic champion – two of these victories coming within the kilo, which he received on the 2008 and 2016 Video games.
Such is Cundy’s standing within the squad that his team-mates name him “captain”.
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“It seems like I’ve earned a little bit of respect from being right here for therefore lengthy,” he mentioned. “I attempt to be the particular person everybody appears as much as.
“However I do know in some unspecified time in the future anyone’s going to need to take my place and I will be strolling away from the game.”
Cundy received his first Para-cycling world title in 2006 [Getty Images]
When Cundy will stroll away is anybody’s guess.
He says he would not have a plan for his retirement, however he is aware of that qualifying for the 2028 Paralympic Video games in Los Angeles might be troublesome.
“If I am nonetheless performing on the very high degree and that signifies that they need to take me, as a result of I can go win in LA, then I shall be there and I am there to be counted,” he mentioned.
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“I am practical within the truth I will be 49 in relation to LA and I am no spring rooster any extra.
“What we do afterwards I actually do not know, whether or not it is in sport in a roundabout way, form or kind.
“It is 31 years I have been in elite sport. If I am going away and take all of that data away with me, I really feel like I am sort of dishonest the system a bit.
“So there’s a part of me that desires to return again and assist – whether or not it is in a training position or a managerial position, and even additional up in governing physique roles and making an attempt to affect the UCI [cycling’s world governing body] and the IPC [International Paralympic Committee] – to make biking higher than what it truly is.”
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The UCI, Cundy says, has “let the game down” by the shortage of Para-cycling observe competitions it hosts outdoors of the World Championships and Paralympics.
On the upcoming Worlds, Cundy and Atkinson are amongst a 24-strong Nice Britain squad – however it’s the first time the staff may have raced at a UCI observe occasion because the final version of the Worlds in Brazil final yr.
“In terms of observe biking we’ve one race a yr, the World Championships, after which each 4 years we’ve a [Paralympic] Video games. That is actually not adequate,” he mentioned.
“Once I first began we used to have competitions, we used to journey and go race in locations. Now you go 12 months with out seeing anyone.
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“You see a begin record and you do not know who half of the names are on it. You do not know whether or not they’ll be quick, gradual, whether or not they’re any good. There’s probably not any outcomes or rankings to comply with.”
The UCI didn’t reply to a request for remark.