I’m proud to announce H.V.M.N. Athlete and professional cyclist Vittoria Bussi is now the women’s world record holder for the Hour, cycling 48.007km in 60 minutes at Aguascalientes, Mexico on September 13, 2018.

Vittoria now stands among giants. In 1954, Roger Bannister changed the sports world forever in under 4 minutes. The clock read 3 minutes, 59 seconds when he crossed the finish line, and Bannister became the first man ever to run a mile in under four minutes, breaking a barrier that would be a defining moment in sports history.

Some 63 years later in 2017, Eliud Kipchoge and Nike’s Breaking2 project (which aimed to complete a marathon in under two hours) continued Bannister’s tradition. Live-streaming the attempt, I remember watching Kipchoge run with a mixture of awe, incredulity, and inspiration. When one human attempts and accomplishes the impossible, it becomes possible for all of humanity. Eliud's valiant effort planted the mind-virus that has now become the H.V.M.N. Project, H.V.M.N.’s R&D Initiative to break world records.

Vittoria and H.V.M.N. are honored to take the mantle of representing the very best of human achievement with the new UCI Hour Record today. Watch the behind-the-scenes video which showcases Vittoria's training and her raw emotion after breaking the record.

“When I first tried H.V.M.N. Ketone in training, the combination of mental lucidity and physical energy was strong and effective,” said Bussi. "I knew I wanted to use it during my attempt at breaking the Hour."

"In this type of challenge, kilometers and seconds mean the difference between breaking the record and coming up short. The performance increase from H.V.M.N. Ketone helped push my body to new limits."

The Hour is one of cycling’s most grueling feats; greats from Eddy Merckx to Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli have held the record. Requiring supreme focus, effort, and discomfort, a rider tests themselves to see how far they can cycle on an indoor track in 60 minutes. It’s a unique microcosm of physiology absent of variables. There’s no team play or drafting. There’s no road course or weather restrictions. There is only the rider and the bike and the clock, ticking as each meter is completed.

We’ve worked with Vittoria for months, optimizing her training with H.V.M.N. Ketone, and following her journey to accomplish the impossible. In 2017, Vittoria attempted the Hour, falling just 400 meters short of setting the record. This was almost the exact distance cyclists traveled further in a 30-minute time trial while research testing H.V.M.N. Ketone.

What’s the backstory? The dots connected at the University of Oxford.

Vittoria was a PhD student working on her doctorate in mathematics. Tom Kirk, Vittoria’s cycling coach, was part of the groundbreaking Oxford study that demonstrated the physiology of H.V.M.N. Ketone on human performance. Since H.V.M.N. Ketone was publicly launched earlier this year in 2018, Vittoria was the obvious candidate to be the archetype H.V.M.N. Project given our shared pedigree from Oxford.

We’re incredibly proud of Vittoria and to play a small role in this historic achievement in mind and body.

This is only the beginning of the H.V.M.N. Project. World records were meant to be broken.