“There is more in there”
Cycling athlete Richardson puts up Fabel World Record
14.08.2025 – 9:49 p.m.Reading time: 1 min.
The Briton Matthew Richardson manages what no train wheel athlete did in front of him. And he believes it is even faster.
A sound barrier in train wheel sport has broken: the Briton Matthew Richardson was the first sprinter to break through the 200-meter brand under nine seconds. On the train in Turkish Konya, the 26-year-old only needed 8.941 seconds for the flying round-world record.
So that the best time of Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) is underbot by 0.147 seconds. The Dutch had reached 9,088 seconds in Paris in 2023. Richardson was on his historic trip at 80.5 km/h.
“It is a pretty cool feeling to have done it,” said Richardson after the race. Particularly noteworthy: he did not drive optimally, as he classified himself. “I drove a lot outside the sprint track, so I know that there is more in there.”
He also emphasized that this moment is special: “You are constantly wins Olympic medals, you are gaining world championships, but you don’t constantly break world records – and you definitely don’t go under nine seconds because that has never happened before.”
Richardson started for Australia at the Olympic Games in France and had won two silver and bronze medal there. After the tournament, he decided to change a nation and has been driving for his country of birth since then.
In the same competition in Paris, the German Sprinter Luca Spiegel had improved the national record to 9.479 seconds.