The team events brought more success for Great Britain as the men’s team pursuit squad took a hard-fought silver medal while the women’s team pursuit squad took home the bronze medal on the second day in Heusden-Zolder.

Matt Walls made his return to the track with a 13th place finish in the men’s points race, while Neah Evans finished ninth in the women’s elimination after an early crash. 

Men’s team pursuit

An incredible final showdown between Great Britain and Denmark saw pure class from both nations, but ultimately ended with the Brits taking home the silver medal in the men’s team pursuit. 

With Will Tidball joining Josh Charlton, Michael Gill and Noah Hobbs, the first round of the men’s team pursuit saw the British team put on a dominant display against the Swiss. Completing the 4km distance in a time of 3:49.813, almost four seconds faster than their opponents and two seconds quicker than their qualifying ride, the British riders flew directly into the gold medal ride-off.

Charlton, Gill, Hobbs and Rhys Britton lined up to fight for the title against world champions Denmark in an incredibly tightly fought race. Great Britain took a confident lead and by three laps in, held half a second over the Danes. This didn’t stay the case for long as the Danes pushed back to take the lead themselves. This started a tense back-and-forth between the nations, as neither took a lead of more than 0.2 seconds for the meat of the race. 

With just 500m to go, Denmark put their foot on the gas and went all out to create a half-second lead, crossing the line first and taking the win, with Great Britain securing a sensational silver.

Women’s team pursuit

Third fastest qualifiers yesterday, GB’s line up of Maddie Leech, Sophie Lewis, Anna Morris, Neah Evans and Grace Lister took the bronze medal after a dominant defeat of France.

In round one, the Brits led from the off and pushed the pace to create a gap of over two seconds ahead of Italy. However, the tables turned with 2km to go as Italy picked up speed and unable to match their pace, Great Britain were defeated. However, a strong time of 4:18.745 saw them qualify for the bronze medal ride off against France.

Lister, Leech, Lewis and Morris took a 1.102 second lead in the first kilometre. The French initially managed to hold this gap, but it wasn’t for long as the British team took control and, over the second half of the race, ferociously extended their lead to over five seconds. A dominant performance culminated in a British defeat of the French, taking the bronze medal by 5.208 seconds in a time of 4:18.147

Men’s points race 

In his first time representing Great Britain in the velodrome since 2022, Matt Walls was competitive in a hotly contested men’s points race, regularly following moves, but was unable to make anything stick to finish 13th overall.

The race was action-packed from the start, with eventual winner Luri Leitao (Portugal) on a one-man mission to take the title, consistently on the attack. Leitao took a lap, alongside by Clement Petit (France) and Lukas Ruegg (Switzerland), before attacking again with 100 laps to go. 

Walls was in hot pursuit of the Portuguese rider, working with four others and earning two points in the sprint lap to put him up to eighth. 

Unfortunately, after several laps’ work between the four riders, a split bunch and number of chase groups, Walls was swallowed by the peloton but still took two more sprint points to sit in sixth.

At this point, Petit started to put pressure on leader Leitao with a solo attack that saw him clock up points and tighten the gap to first place with just one point between them. But Leitao was not to be stopped and immediately launched a solo lap-take, putting him back ahead with 74 points.

A constant flurry of attacks from across the field was not able to put a dent in Leitao’s lead, winning with an impressive 157 points. 

Walls delivered a promising race but unfortunately was unable to convert his efforts into enough points to make the podium, finishing in 13th place overall.

Women's elimination 

Marred by early crashes, one of which saw British rider Neah Evans come down, the elimination race proved frustrating for the Scot who finished ninth place overall.

After coming off the track within the first few laps alongside Lea Lin Teutenberg (Germany) and Maria Martins (Portugal), a restarted race looked initially positive for Evans as she took to the front of the group in a safe position.

Riding confidently and with resilience throughout, with 10 laps to go, a drop to the back of the group saw Evans at risk, only just managing to escape elimination before repositioning herself at the head of the bunch.

However, just one sprint later Evans was caught short and eliminated from the race, taking ninth place overall.

Men’s 1km TT

In their debut elite European championships, Lyall Craig completed the 1km time-trial in 1:03.108 to finish 13th, while teammate Harry Radford finished 14th with a time of 1:03.855. While both put in solid men’s kilo rides at their maiden European championships, unfortunately they did not quite find a top-eight time needed to qualify for this evening’s final.

Women’s sprint

National sprint champion Lauren Bell qualified fastest in the flying 200m with a time of 10.487. Rhian Edmunds delivered a time of 10.580, just 0.093 seconds behind Bell, qualifying third.

These results put them both straight through to the 1/8 finals where they comfortably won their individual races, sailing through ending them straight through to the evening’s quarter-finals.

In Bell’s first race against Yana Burlakova (AIN), Burlakova took an early lead that Bell was unable to follow, putting her one race down. Coming back strong, Bell dropped in from the top to accelerate into the sprint and hold her rival off to make it one a piece. In the decider, Bell made her move early, but Burlakova accelerated hard to get round Bell and knock her out of the competition.

In her quarter-final, teammate Edmunds took on Czechia’s Veronika Jabornikova and after being held off by an acceleration, managed to catch on the final turn to take the first win. Jabornikova equalised by creating a big gap in race two, leaving the result up to a decider. Approaching the race with confidence, Edmunds launched her sprint from behind, putting the pressure on and creating an uncatchable lead to secure her place in tomorrow’s semi-finals. 

Alongside the culmination of the women’s sprint, tomorrow’s racing will also see the men take to the boards for their individual sprint qualifiers. Will Tidball competes in the men’s scratch race, Josh Charlton and Michael Gill will contest the individual pursuit title and Maddie Leech will take on the women’s omnium event. 

You can follow highlights on Instagram @GBCyclingTeam and watch the evening session on Discovery+ from 5:30pm.