Multi-discipline world champions

How many riders can you think of who have been world champion at two different things? Find out in the latest DNF podcast

In 1994, Chris Boardman won a rainbow jersey on the road, a rainbow jersey on the track and he wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. No other male rider has done these three things in the same year before or since.

In August of that year, the track worlds and the road worlds were held together in Sicily. Boardman had won the Olympic gold in the individual pursuit in Barcelona in 1992. The closest he had come to winning a rainbow jersey was the following year in 1993 when he reached the semi-final of the individual pursuit against his Hour Record foe Graeme Obree.

Obree smashed the world record and was reported to have said to Boardman as they were slowing down after their showdown - “sorry about that”. Obree went on to take the rainbow jersey and Boardman got the bronze.

In 1994, Boardman made no mistake in the individual pursuit and he took his first ever elite rainbow jersey. The following week, the first ever elite individual time trial world championships took place and Boardman won that too, with a 20-year old Jan Ullrich taking the bronze medal.

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Track cycling wasn’t easy to follow back then. It only really existed on the pages of Cycling Weekly. It’s Boardman’s yellow jersey that year that I remember.

The year before, 1993, had been the first Tour de France that I had really properly watched. It’s remembered now as a bit of a hum drum edition, or not remembered at all. It was the middle of Miguel Indurains five wins. Tony Rominger showed up meaning business but a disastrous opening week meant he was always playing catchup and he never caught up. Although he did smash Indurain in a time trial, in the polka dot jersey - still the last rider to win a Tour de France time trial while wearing that jersey.

My Dad had taped that Tour on to VHS tapes. I spent the next year watching them and re-watching them. Due to nostalgia, it is in my view, the best Tour de France of all time and nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

It meant that the 1994 prologue time trial, and I’m not exaggerating here, was the most excited I have ever been for a Tour de France stage. I had been looking forward to the Channel 4 coverage of that stage for the entire year leading up to it.

And despite it being a prologue time trial, it actually didn’t disappoint.

Chris Boardman won it and took the yellow jersey, the first British rider to wear it since Tom Simpson. Phil Liggett was suitable excited.

Luc Leblanc was definitely not excited. He had been caught and passed by Boardman who pulled back more than a minute on him in just 7.2km. Boardman passed him on the finishing stretch in Lille and Leblanc immediately got out of the saddle and tried to cycle his bike faster as though something must be terribly wrong. There is no possible way that Boardman could be travelling that much faster than him. Why were Leblanc’s legs not working properly. But they were working properly. Boardman was going that fast.

As Boardman himself said, most people were going to that Tour de France for three weeks, he was going for seven minutes. It remains the fastest prologue time trial in Tour de France history.

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Lotte Kopecky emulated Boardman in 2023 winning the World road race, points and elimination on the track and wearing yellow at the Tour for six days.

Jeannie Longo also achieved this rare treble in 1989. She won the points race and 3km pursuit worlds on the track, the world road race title and she won the Tour de France féminin.

Longo is also one of very few riders who have been world champions across three entirely different disciplines as she was also a time trial world champion to add to her road and track titles.

Being capable of beating the best in the world in two or three entirely different disciplines is something which really blows my mind. It’s hard enough being good enough at one of these things.

There are two riders who have been world champion in four different disciplines - can you guess who they are?

Boardman achieved his success across two disciplines in 1994, but before Boardman did that it hadn’t been done by a male rider since 1977 and wasn’t done afterward until 2011 - can you guess who those riders were?

Find out the answers and so much more in the discussion we had about multi-discipline world champions in the latest Did Not Finish podcast.

This is a new weekly podcast with myself, Harry Dowdney and Stuart Downie where we take an interesting fact or stat and peel the layers back to find all of the intrigue and history and context therein. Please give it a listen and let us know what you think.