Track Cycling – World Championship 2026 [DAY 4]

October 17, 2026

Track Cycling – World Championship 2026 – Day 4 – Shanghai Velodrome on Chongming Island, Shanghai, China 🇨🇳

The UCI Track World Championships is the premier annual event in track cycling, organised by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). First held in 1893, the Championships have a history spanning more than 130 years. Winners are awarded the iconic Rainbow Jersey, the symbol of a reigning UCI World Champion. Reigning UCI World Champions are entitled to wear the rainbow jersey for the full year until the following UCI World Championships – but only when competing in the discipline, category and speciality for which they won it. Meanwhile former UCI World Champions have the privilege of displaying rainbow bands on the sleeves and on the collar of their team jersey, to recognise their past victory.

Millie Couzens beats teammate Josie Knight in Individual Pursuit, Anna Morris and Erin Boothman add another GB gold in the Madison, and Pauline Grabosch wins the time trial

Four more rainbow jerseys were handed out on the penultimate day of the 2026 UCI Track World Championships, with yet more success for Great Britain’s women.

Anna Morris claimed her third gold medal of these Championships with victory alongside Erin Boothman in the Madison.

Elsewhere, it was an all-British final in the Individual Pursuit, with Millie Couzens getting the better of Josie Knight.

Saturday’s medal events were kickestarted by Pauline Grabosch taking Germany’s first gold of the week in the women’s time trial, beating the Dutch reigning world champion Hetty van de Wouw to the win.

The day’s action ended with the men’s Omnium, where Iúri Leitão (Portugal) capped a fine day’s racing with a consummate performance in the fourth and final event, the points race.

Women’s Time Trial
The first medal event of the day came with the women’s time trial, and there were few surprises among the eight competitors, with the top spots following on from the qualifying results at the start of the day.

Qualifying saw Pauline Grabosch (Germany) top the timesheet ahead of reigning world champion Hetty van de Wouw (Netherlands) and 2024 world champion Iana Burlakova (Independent Neutral Athletes).

The top two once again proved to be the two quickest in the final, with Grabosch’s time of 1:04.572 a good seven-tenths of a second quicker than Van de Wouw, who had been provisional leader.

The Dutch racer settled for silver then, while her teammate, Sofie van Rooijen, nabbed bronze. Van Rooijen had topped the standings as the fourth rider to start, and both Mathilde Gros (France) and Burlakova failed to beat that 1:05.398 run despite both starting out quicker. Burlakova finished the race in fourth place, just 0.033 seconds off Van Rooijen.

Men’s Omnium
Iúri Leitão (Portugal) claimed the second Omnium world title of his career with a poised and powerful day of racing in Shanghai.

All four Omnium events took place on Saturday and Leitão made the perfect start with victory in the scratch race by a lap over the rest of the field. Third place in both the tempo race and the elimination race ensured he entered the final points race at the top of the leaderboard, and he managed a tricky race extremely well to take the overall title.

It was Tim Torn Teutenberg (Germany), winner of the tempo race, and Henry Hobbs (Great Britain), winner of the elimination race, who were the closest challengers going into the points race, with everything to play for. That much became clear half-way through the 100-lap race, when Fabio Van Den Bossche (Belgium) attacked and, after working his way through a fragmented bunch, was awarded a lap gain that gave him 20 points and put him top of the leaderboard, with points scored in the points race simply added to the riders’ totals from the previous rounds.

Leitão arguably should have been more alert to it but he didn’t panic and with 35 laps remaining he made amends with a swift attack and an utterly clinical lap gain completed in just a few revolutions of the track. From there, back on top, he managed the race astutely, marking moves from Van Den Bossche, Teutenberg, and the Spaniard Sebastian Mora, who’d moved into a podium position with a lap gain of his own around the same time.

Teutenberg won the penultimate sprint to move back into bronze medal position at the expense of Mora, and from there all Leitão had to do was cross the line, such was his lead with 10 points remaining for the final sprint.

He finished on 143 points for the competition, with Van Den Bossche taking the silver medal on 129 points and Teutenberg clinching bronze on 115 points.

Women’s Madison
Great Britain’s storming World Championships continued with victory in the women’s Madison. This was hardly the most experienced pairing in the field, with Anna Morris only competing in her first Madison a year ago and teaming up with the teenager Erin Boothman.

But Morris has been a revelation of these Championships, claiming her third world title of the week, and she was riding with a former junior world champion in the discipline.

The key moment came with 40 of the 120 laps remaining. Until that point, New Zealand were heading up the leaderboard thanks to points gained in the sprints but despite botching a handover, Britain launched straight into a two-up attack with France, and it resulted in a lap gain and 20 points for both nations.

Britain marked everything and even scored well in the sprints, taking the 10th of the 12 sprints to extend their lead over France to nine points with 20 laps to go. From there, they managed the latter phase of the race calmly – there we no more lap gains and Britain marked France on the penultimate sprint to make virtually sure of it.

In the end, they finished on 40 points, beating France by seven points, with Japan taking the bronze medal with 18 points.

“We are actually quite fresh together. My first Madison was only in September last year so I’m not sure who’s taking the lead on experience, but it’s really exciting to work with Erin and hopefully there’s more to come as we keep working on the partnership,” said Morris.

Women’s Individual Pursuit
Another event, another gold medal for Great Britain’s women, and this one was a dead cert as the final began. Having been the top two in qualifying, Mille Couzens and Josie Knight – who won gold together in the team pursuit earlier in the week – faced off against each other in the final, and Couzens came out on top.

Couzens had qualified fastest in the morning session, just under two seconds faster than Knight, and there was an enormous gulf to the rest of the competition, with the third and fourth from qualifying – Martina Alzini (Italy) and Lisa Klein (Germany) – being nine seconds slower than Couzens’ benchmark.

Come the final, Couzens made the stronger start and opened a commanding lead. Knight did come back at her in the second half of the pursuit, but it wasn’t enough. Couzens stopped the clock on 4:21.505, half a second up on her teammate.

“I’m still a bit shocked. I had zero expectations coming in. I thought a podium would be a good result, but I didn’t expect this, so I’m very happy. “It’s always a bit weird racing against a teammate, but it was quite nice, you feel like you’re in it together.”

In the bronze medal match, Klein was a runaway winner against Alzini.

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