16 February 2009

Whoa! Let's Do That Again


Copenhagen, Denmark: Taylor Phinney posts 4:15.223 in the men's individual pursuit qualifying at the Track World Cup meet, February 13 - 15.

Okay, whoa... that's really fast, yo! To get an idea of just how fast that is, consider that at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing, the winner of this event went 4:16.977. The world record is a seemingly untouchable 4:11, set in 1996, but when you consider that at the Olympics last year, Phinney rode a 4:26 in qualifying, well... anything seems possible. Down here in New Zealand, we're glad he wasn't so quick last year, given that in the Olympic qualifying round, he was pitted against our own Hayden Roulston, who eventually won silver.

Not really sure what the five is for... this guy is number one!

Did I mention that Taylor is only eighteen years old? He's still on a high school network on Facebook. His favourite word (apparently anyway, judging by the amount this word gets thrown around on his Twitter) is "slay" and I guess that's because that's what he did to the competition this weekend in Copenhagen. He also won the kilo time trial (that's a kilometre) in a snappy 1:01. Um, get out of town.

In London (2012, the next Olympics), Taylor's going to be just on 22 years old. It seems a little presumptuous to make well, predictions now, but can you IMAGINE how fast he's going to be riding then? Yikes.

Nice, Taylor. We love your work.

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