Hour Record holder Vittoria Bussi ends career after final record attempt

The women's Hour Record holder, Vittoria Bussi, has ended her career "with bitterness in my mouth" following an unsuccessful world record attempt.

The Italian, now 37 years old, spent last weekend in Aguascalientes, Mexico, trying to break the 3,000m individual pursuit record, which stood at 3:16.937, set by the USA's Chloé Dygert in 2020.

Bussi clocked 3:19.787 in Mexico, a new Italian record, before announcing her retirement on Instagram. 

"I end my career like this," she wrote, "not on the peak of glory, but with bitterness in my mouth. In the end, movies with happy endings are kinda boring, right?"

In October last year, Bussi became the first woman in history to go beyond the 50km mark in the Hour Record. The then 36-year-old managed a distance of 50.267km, also in Aguascalientes, reclaiming the title that she had previously held in 2018. 

A PhD level mathematician, Bussi's Hour Record attempt became reality thanks to a crowdfunding campaign, which exceeded its €10,000 target by over €2,000. Shortly after breaking the record, she explained, she had the "bizarre idea" to try and better the individual pursuit benchmark. 

"It all started as a joke," Bussi wrote on Instagram. "Just a week after the Hour Record, with the bizarre idea of learning to go from a standing start and reach almost 60km/h in seconds.

"I moved to Aigle [UCI headquarters in Switzerland] to learn this and in May, without expectations, I did 3:19 in a test, and then 3:18 a few days after my wedding."

In Aguascalientes, Bussi adopted the strategy of starting at world record pace, and trying to hold on "as long as possible". 

"At 2,500m, for a moment, I believed in the fairytale of a third world record, the story of the girl who finds redemption by reaching the top of the world in a speciality she may not have been made for, in which she was never given a chance. Then Mr. Lactic Acid arrived, the seconds flew by, and the legs couldn't move anymore. The fairytale is over."

Born in Rome, Bussi began cycling in her mid-twenties, after starting a maths doctorate at Oxford University. She raced for Italian trade teams in 2014 and 2015, but felt uneasy riding in the bunch, so turned her attention to individual efforts. Across her career, she finished three times runner-up in the Italian Time Trial Championships.

In 2018, Bussi set the Hour Record with 48.007km, a benchmark that stood for three years, before it was surpassed by British time trial specialist Joss Lowen in 2021. The Italian took back the record last year, beating the distance set by Ellen van Dijk by more than a kilometre.

Reflecting on her latest individual pursuit attempt, Bussi said it gave her perhaps "even more pride" than her Hour Record feats, "for courage, for accepting the pain, for not having regrets". 

"Always push yourself further, even where you are not capable," she signed off her post.