Longo wins 57th French national title

Longo completed the 24.7km race against the clock in a time of 34min 51sec, finishing 1min 19sec ahead of 43-year-old Edwige Pitel, a former two-time national champion in the discipline.

Former national road champion Christel Ferrier-Bruneau, 30, finished third at 1:45.

Despite her advancing years, Longo's impressive training and work ethic is well known. As well as putting in the hours and the kilometres, she is not adverse to taking part in training camps at altitude in Colorado.

Longo, who claimed the first of her 10 national time trial crowns 15 years ago, said she had targeted this event specifically.

"I thought I would come in with a significant advantage given the amount of training I've put in," said Longo, who hails from Grenoble.

"It was my main goal, and I've been training hard for this since December."

Longo's presence in the women's cycling peloton, whose average age is usually half her age, has on occasion prompted the odd grumble.

However the Frenchwoman known for her no-nonsense attitude has always defended her right to compete, no matter what her age.

That belief was vindicated Thursday, when, asked why her rivals could not match up, she suggested they "hadn't done enough specific training".

She added: "I'm sorry to say it, but they need to go back to the drawing board on a few things.

"Still, you can't discount my 30 years of experience!"

Among Longo's achievements are five world titles in the women's road race, four world time trial titles, three world titles in the pursuit (track) and one world title in the points race (track).

Longo won Olympic road race gold at Atlanta in 1996 and has a further two silver and one bronze from a total of seven Olympic participations.