Matt Richardson becomes the first man to fly through 200-meter course under 9 seconds!

Cyclists have already come extremely close to break the 9-second barrier in a 200m flying sprint at last year's World Championships when both superstars Matt Richardson and Harrie Lavreysen rode below 9.1s times. And on Thursday, it has happened with Richardson again as a protagonist.

The UK cycling travelled to Konya, Turkiye to attempt several world records on a local track in 1200-meter altitude. Perhaps the main event of the day was Charlie Tanfield's attempt for a Hour Record, first since Filippo Ganna's 2022 time. The 28-year-old Brit failed on his task, but the Australian-turned-Brit Matt Richardson delivered a big success for UK cycling later in the day.

When Richardson crossed the line, clock showed 8.941s, riding at a stunning average speed of 80.5km/h.

"I did it, I came here to do that and that’s what I did, so it’s a pretty cool feeling to accomplish the one thing that I came out here to do," he said afterwards. "It was a lot faster [than I’ve previously ridden], I was basically just a passenger. I gave the bike a bit of direction and it was just steering itself almost. I rode a lot of it outside the sprint lane, so I know there’s a bit more there. It goes pretty quick. I know this track can be quite a handful out of the corners so I was cautious in those spots but other than that it was just going as hard as I can."