Seven months after announcing her retirement from competition, Vittoria Bussi will make a surprise return to the velodrome with a pair of world record attempts in Mexico. The Italian, who already holds the UCI Hour Record, is targeting a double in Aguascalientes this May: extending her current Hour benchmark on 9th May, followed by a shot at the women’s 4km individual pursuit record.
Bussi, 38, made history in October 2023 by becoming the first woman to ride more than 50 kilometres in an hour, covering 50.267km at the high-altitude Velodromo Bicentenario in Aguascalientes. That record, achieved through a crowdfunding campaign and sheer self-belief, capped off a journey that began when she first broke the Hour mark in 2018. This time, she is aiming to go even further.
“I am over the moon thinking that I will have the chance to attempt to break the UCI Hour Record again in my life,” Bussi said. “I started my real cycling career with this record, so it will be the perfect dream to finish it with another record.”
A former middle-distance runner and Oxford-educated mathematician, Bussi began cycling relatively late, turning to the sport in her late twenties. While she briefly raced for Italian teams in the mid-2010s, she always gravitated toward solo efforts. The track became her calling, specifically, the relentless pacing of time trials and pursuit events.
Her comeback follows an unsuccessful attempt at the 3km individual pursuit world record last year, after which she announced her retirement. But with the women’s pursuit distance increased to 4km from January 2025, the door reopened. The current record is 4:24.060, which was set by Anna Morris at the 2025 Lloyds National Track Championships in Manchester, and now becomes Bussi’s second target during her return to Aguascalientes.
“To me, this record has meant much more than just a sport performance,” she said. “It actually helped me in the darkest period of my life. I am deeply and sincerely thankful to all the people who supported me during all these years, as an athlete but most of all as a person.”
If successful, Bussi would become the first woman to ever hold both the Hour and the 4km pursuit world records at the same time.
“It will be the most challenging Hour of my career,” she added, “as it has been prepared together with the individual pursuit, my other (very different!) love. I think it would be a beautiful historical moment for women’s cycling to be able to hold both the records at the same time, so I am honoured to try.”
Her attempt on the Hour is scheduled for Friday 9th May, followed by the individual pursuit record later in the same week—both at altitude in Aguascalientes, where aerodynamic conditions have seen multiple records fall in recent years. Whether she surpasses her own mark or not, Bussi’s return marks another bold and uncompromising chapter in a career already defined by resilience, precision, and the pursuit of limits.
