Boardman's sights set on Manchester

Cycling

Cycling

Chris Boardman, who broke his ankle in the prologue to this year's Tour de France, is to make his comeback against Tony Rominger, the world No 1, in Manchester on 14 October.

Boardman, the leader of the GAN team and Olympic pursuit champion, will race the Swiss rider in a pursuit race at the Manchester Velodrome. The Englishman will then attempt to rebuild his road racing career in the Milan-Turin Classic on 18 October.

Graeme Obree, the newly crowned pursuit world champion, is considering an attempt on Rominger's one-hour record (55.291 km) in Manchester on the same day.

However, sources close to the Scottish rider were pessimistic yesterday about the bid, saying Obree had lost muscle strength during his altitude training for the World Championships in Bogota.

Marion Clignet, of France, broke the women's individual pursuit world record with a time of 3min 36.277sec at the World Championships yesterday. Clignet bettered the time of 3:36.823 which had been set by Italy's Antonella Bellutti only minutes earlier.

The previous record for the three-kilometre event had belonged to the American Rebecca Twigg who set a time of 3:37.347 at Hamar, Norway, in August 1993.