Showing she can still race extremely quickly at 52 years of age, Jeannie Longo today took the French time trial champs, marking her 58th national title in all.
Longo proved best on a 19 kilometre course held at Boulogne sur Mer, beating Christel Ferrier Bruneau by 42 seconds. Bruneau is 21 years younger than her, while the bronze medallist Audrey Cordon is 31 years her junior.
Cordon was ten seconds behind Bruneau, while the tipped Pauline Ferrand Prévot suffered due to recent illness and finished 57 seconds off the gold medal.
Longo has won the title for the past four years, and taken eleven TT championships in all. She beat Edwige Pitel last year in Chantonnay. Astonishingly, her first national title came 32 years ago.
During her long career she has also won three editions of the women’s Tour de France (pictured), gold and silver medals in Olympic Road race, plus silver and bronze in Olympic time trial. Her palmares also includes nine road world championship titles (five in the road race, four in the TT), four track world championship titles (pursuit and points races), as well as three silvers and three bronze medals. She also showed her versatility in taking the world hour record in 2000 plus the silver medal in 1993 UCI world mountain bike championship.
Despite the fact that she will be almost three times older than some of her rivals, she has indicated that she wants to ride the world championships in Copenhagen later this year.