“Hat-trick Harrie” is more alone than ever in the world: Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen became the most successful rider in the history of the Track Cycling World Championships with a fifteenth coronation on Friday in Ballerup, Denmark.
“Fifteen titles, I don’t even know what to say. There are so many prestigious names on this list, it’s completely crazy,” he told AFP.
Two days ago, the “Flying Dutchman” equaled the mark of Frenchman Arnaud Tournant, winner of fourteen world championship titles between 1997 and 2008, by winning the team sprint with his usual friends Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg .
On Friday, he alone seized the record by flying over the non-Olympic kilometer event which, carried by the breath of history, he had included for the first time in his program during these Worlds.
“It was hard because it’s the first time I’ve run the kilometer at this level but I managed it. It’s special,” he said.
Overpowering, the man with iron thighs beat Hoogland, who was the three-time defending champion, and the British Joseph Truman to erase his surprising failure in the keirin the day before.
And it’s not over since there is a (very) strong chance that he will further improve the record on Sunday, where he will compete in individual speed, the main event, and where he remains on five titles consecutive world championships.
Also a five-time Olympic champion, the Dutchman has been almost unbeatable since his arrival on the scene in the early 2020s and continues, at 27, to write the legend with intact appetite and motivation.
“I love this sport and the competition, I continue to have fun, to laugh,” he explained.
– “An alien” –
“He potentially still has five or six years left at the top. He could come close to 30 world champion titles. It’s sick. He’s monstrous,” explained French track rider Sébastien Vigier during the Olympic Games. Paris, where “Hat-trick Harrie” won the three gold medals awarded in the sprint (individual and team speed as well as the keirin).
And what’s more, he is “really cool, calm”, added Vigier, saluting a runner who, despite his overwhelming domination, does not have “a big head” and also turns out to be “a good party animal after competitions”.
The images of his triumphant return to the country after his Olympic hat-trick confirmed the potential at this level of the smiling and muscular Dutchman, who otherwise leads a studious and relatively anonymous life, little known outside his small village of Luyksgestel, in the Belgian border.
The king of sprinting now has six world team sprint titles, five in individual and four in keirin.
At the rate of one World Championship per year, the bill could quickly add up, knowing that his next big goal remains the Los Angeles Games in 2028, where he aims to beat the legend’s record of seven Olympic titles. British Jason Kenny.
“Harrie is an alien, he’s already the best of all time,” said Polish sprinter Mateusz Rudyk.
The day was also marked by the victory of Jonathan Milan in the individual pursuit with a new world record (3:59.153). The 24-year-old Italian, who also shines on the road, dominated in the final the young Briton Josh Charlton, who himself had improved in qualifying the world record which had belonged since the 2022 Worlds to the Italian Filippo Ganna.
jk/hpa
