“That's the best part of sport sometimes: the drama. It's why we love to watch."

Ireland’s Colin Lynch had under 20 minutes left to break the para-cycling ‘hour record’ on Saturday (10 October) when a bike malfunction dramatically ended his hopes.

Lynch suffered a puncture in his front tyre around the 42-minute mark during his attempt at the Manchester Velodrome in Great Britain. The record for his class (MC2) still stands at 41.31km, set by France’s Laurent Thirionet in 1999.

Lynch had completed about 29km over 117 laps of the 250m velodrome before he crashed but tweeted afterward that he did not incur any injuries.

Lynch – a gold medallist in the time trial at the 2011 UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships and also the individual pursuit at the 2012 Track World Championships -also tweeted: “Tried to get up and finish but couldn’t put weight on my elbow. But I vow to come back and do it again. Record was there for the taking.

“That's the best part of sport sometimes: the drama. It's why we love to watch. Thanks for all the support today. Means a lot.”

Lynch’s hour record attempt can be watched in full via YouTube.