It was raining medals for Great Britain in Ballerup Super Arena, as Emma Finucane defended her individual sprint world title, Jess Roberts and Josh Charlton won silver medals in the omnium and individual pursuit, respectively.
Joe Truman took bronze in the 1km time-trial while Dan Bigham closed out his international career with a bronze in the individual pursuit
Women’s sprint
Emma Finucane closed the night in a blaze of glory as she defended her individual sprint title in straight wins; becoming the first British woman to do so since Victoria Pendleton in 2010.
The day started with the semi-finals where Emma Finucane came up against Mina Sato (Japan), racing clear past her in the first round to take the win. Fending Sato off on the home straight in the second race, Finucane made it 2-0, sending her straight through to the gold medal final.
Up against Hetty van de Wouw, who had ridden an impressive event so far, Finucane seemed to breeze through each ride, growing in confidence throughout the final and taking the first win. The second race saw Finucane come out all guns blazing, clearly with no plans to give away her rainbow stripes. Using the height of the track, Finucane put down an incredible pace, leaving van de Wouw in her wake for Finucane to take the gold medal and back-to-back world titles.
In Capewell’s semi-final, she played a game of patience against van de Wouw, taking the first win. However, two strong rides from van de Wouw saw Capewell head into the bronze medal race with a 1-2 finish.
Against Sato, Capewell delivered good rides against a strong opponent, but unfortunately did not have the legs and was beaten to the bronze medal by Sato in two straight rides.
Shortly after defending her sprint title, Finucane said: “The first one (world title) you don’t expect it almost, I was a bit of an underdog, and no one really knew me. People knew my name, but I was mid field, whereas now I have raced in the rainbow jersey all year, I have dealt with the expectation and the pressure. It was hard today, but I am really happy that I overcame a lot today and conducted and composed myself on the track. Every ride was different, it was fast, I’m really proud.
“I felt really confident on this track. I knew my strengths. Scott has been amazing with my confidence. Off the back of the Olympics, I was exhausted, those two events in the seven-day period were enormous for me. And then to come back here and reset is really hard. I knew what I needed to do on the track, and I executed every round. I’m just so proud of who I am and where my career is going.”
Women’s omnium
Having won the team pursuit world title last night, Jess Roberts followed up with an impressive silver medal in the omnium after four impressive rides.
Scratch - In a congested scratch race with an open field, Roberts stayed well positioned throughout, maintaining energy and sitting comfortably in the bunch, keeping the pace. With three laps to go, Roberts made her move and powered off the front on the black line. Roberts held off the field until half a lap to go before finding herself boxed in at the bottom unable to maintain the lead and finishing seventh; a good start to the day.
Tempo - The tempo race started slowly with not a huge amount of action from the bunch, as Ally Wollaston quietly and consistently racked up lap points to be ahead with eight points. With 10 laps to go, the race had split considerably with two groups of three off the front, behind Wollaston who had edged to half a lap ahead of the bunch.
With seven laps to go, Roberts made her move in a bid to catch Wollaston and joined by Tsuyaka Uchino (Japan) and Anita Yvonne Stenberg (Norway), they managed to bridge the gap and pull Wollaston into make a group of four.
In the remaining laps, the four worked smartly and eventually managed to take a lap and 20 points, pushing Roberts up the leaderboard into third place, putting her fourth place overall with 64 points after two events.
Elimination - Roberts rode an impressive elimination race, boldly positioning herself at the front for the majority of the race. A crash between Alexandra Manly (Aus) and Victoire Berteau (France) midway through saw the race neutralised. Once both riders were back in the race, Roberts assumed her favoured position at the front of the bunch, staying safe as more riders were eliminated.
As the bunch got smaller and more open, Roberts had to work harder to maintain the pace and keep out of trouble but was ultimately eliminated to finish in seventh place.
Points - Roberts headed into the final points race in fifth position with 92 points. After a muted start, with Wollaston, Stenberg, Dideriksen marking each other, Wollaston and Stenberg both earned points in sprint one, with Roberts comfortable in fifth. Roberts continued to steadily add sprint points to her total, before trying to get off the front with Dideriksen, but neither rider was able to make a move stick.
With 45 laps to go, Roberts committed to a lap gain, pushing hard and giving it everything to catapult her into first position. Tactically, Roberts held off joining the group in line with the upcoming sprint, to take a bonus five points.
Comfortably back in the bunch and heavily marked, Roberts attempted to chase down Dideriksen’s attack at 28 laps to go. With no one else supporting the chase, Roberts let her go and dropped to the back of the chase group of favourites.
In the sixth sprint, Wollaston took five more points, putting her just one point behind Roberts in first, with Stenberg on 109 in third. With 15 laps to go, Roberts kept her eyes on Wollaston coming into the penultimate sprint, following her to take a point to Wollaston’s three in the penultimate sprint, confirming them and Stenberg for the podium.
In a cagey final few laps, Roberts stayed calm conserving energy for the final sprint before her foot came out of her pedal, leaving her to fall to the back of the pack with just three laps to go. Unable to contest the final sprint, but with enough points to stay on the podium, Roberts took an impressive silver medal after a fantastic day of racing.
The silver medal winner, Roberts, spoke afterwards: “I am really happy, but I am also really annoyed. [In the points race] My foot came out and I couldn't get it back in. I just bumped into her with three laps to go so I lost my positioning. But I am still really happy.
“We had a plan coming in to be top eight and be consistently top six in each race. I seemed to have some legs left so I committed so hard, but I had to dig so deep. I honestly did not expect silver, I was just racing that race. Luckily I held on.”
Men’s individual pursuit
It was battle of the Brits in the men’s individual pursuit as Josh Charlton took the silver medal after setting a world record earlier in the day, while Dan Bigham won the bronze in his final professional race against teammate Charlie Tanfield.
Durham dynamo Josh Charlton gave a sensational qualifying performance setting an unexpected world record of 3:59.304, 0.332 faster than the previous held by Italy’s Fillipo Ganna and an 11 second PB.
Teammate Charlie Tanfield delivered a PB time of 4:04.040 to initially sit in second place before being pushed into third by Jonathan Milan (Italy). The final Brit to qualify was Dan Bigham, who started steady in 14th position before edging his way up the leaderboard to finish third fastest with his own PB of 4:01.671. Bigham and Tanfield would face off in the bronze medal ride while Charlton would go on to ride for gold in his first world championships outing.
20-year-old Josh Charlton made himself known in the final, after being over a second down on Milan for the first 3km. Charlton pushed hard on the final quarter, slowly closing the gap and making Milan work, having to break the world record set by Charlton earlier in the day to take the world title. Charlton took the silver medal with pride, his second place coming on this debut world championships.
In the all-GB bronze medal ride off, Bigham stayed true to form, riding tentatively from the off with Tanfield taking the lead by around 0.3 seconds up to the halfway mark. With 2km to go, Bigham picked up the pace, eventually overtaking Tanfield with 1500m to go, only widening the gap further and further until the gap passed four seconds, the gun fired and Bigham took the bronze medal as he bowed out of professional competition.
Speaking soon after his final professional race, Bigham said: “I’ve done enough of these to drag myself kicking and screaming through them. I just said this is the last four minutes I’ll be riding at this level and on this stage. You look up and realise this is pretty damned cool.
“It was emotional. I definitely surprised myself there, I had a good back end to the race which I didn't expect myself to have, so it was great to do a good ride.”
Men’s 1km time-trial
Joe Truman delivered a powerful qualifying ride in his signature event, putting down a time of 58.667 seconds and breaking the British national record that had previously been held by Sir Chris Hoy since 2007. He qualified in third place behind current world champion Jeffrey Hoogland (Netherlands) in second and Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) in first.
In the final, power-house Truman delivered consistency in a time of 58.669, two thousandths of a second slower than his qualifier which saw him take the bronze – his first individual world championship medal.
Afterwards, he reflected: “I came in with a target of going sub-59, so I thought it would be close to a British record, so I am buzzing to get that, it has been standing for a long time. It is not often we get to go to a race and target the kilo, so I feel privileged to put the kit on for the kilo and get the reward.”
On this being his first world medal since 2018, he added: “It’s been six years and I’ve been training so hard. I have had two major injuries in that time as well which set me back, but I’ve had a really good run for this last year and a half. To come here and get a medal, I am really happy.”
Men’s points race
Mark Stewart put in an impressive ride in a non-stop men’s points race that saw attacks and lap-takes aplenty, finishing a commendable sixth overall.
The race saw attack after attack, with the action regularly being splintered across the track as riders worked hard to rack up those all-important points, through sprints or lap takes.
Stewart positioned himself well throughout the race, regularly featuring in moves and with 125 laps to go, caught a break that formed off the back of Peter Moore’s (USA) lap take.
With 97 laps to go, Stewart formed a group with Roger Kluge (Germany), Nikolas Larsen (Denmark), Diogo Narciso (Portugal), Naoki Kojima (Japan) and Sebastian Mora Vedri (Spain), getting off the front of the race to take a lap and push him up to 11th place. This was followed by a solo break which saw him take the following sprint and move up to seventh place.
In an incredibly disjointed race, Stewart stayed with the key groups and with six sprints to go, he made it into another group of nine who gained half a lap on the bunch where Stewart took another five sprint points.
In a ferocious race, Stewart rarely missed a move, but after narrowly positioning himself outside a few sprint points, that set him 15 points off the podium heading to the end of the race where he finished a commendable sixth overall.
Tomorrow’s penultimate day of racing will see British riders compete in the women’s 500m TT, men’s omnium, women’s Madison, women’s individual pursuit and men’s sprint qualifying.
You can watch the event live on BBC and Discovery+ as well as follow updates on the British Cycling social media channels.
