Commonwealth Games champion Alex Dowsett admitted he had been forced to dig deep into his energy reserves as he became the first Briton since Chris Boardman to break the Hour Record.

Dowsett covered 52.937km in 60 minutes at the Manchester Velodrome on Saturday to break cycling's iconic record - the fourth time it has been done in the last eight months.

At one point it had looked like he was falling behind the pace set by Roham Dennis back in February when the Australian recorded a mark of 52.491km.

But 26-year-old Dowsett – who had to postpone his original attempt back in February due to a broken collarbone – timed his run to perfection to take the record.

“I was expecting horrific and it was just terrible,” he said. “I’m not going to lie, the first 30 minutes was easy. Easy compared to what I expected.

“I knew it was going to be easy early on, but I wasn’t expecting that. I had to stay disciplined because the last ten minutes was a bit grippy.

“The coaches gave me a plan, which I didn’t like that much. Deep down I knew it was the right plan.

“We knew we would ride at an even pace that would actually put me behind Rohan until 45 minutes.

“I wasn’t too keen on that, so it was about the half way point that I went up because I knew I had a lot left in the tank.”

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