Anna Morris and Mark Stewart starred for Great Britain at the UCI Track World Championships on Friday with victories in the women’s omnium and men’s points race.
The pair doubled their country’s gold medal haul at the championships in Shanghai, China, adding to the titles already won in the women’s team pursuit and men’s scratch race.
Morris’s omnium win continued a stellar year for the 31-year-old, who, prior to Friday, had already collected two European titles, two Commonwealth Games titles and a world title in the team pursuit this year.
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“It’s amazing,” she said of her sixth career rainbow jersey. “These stripes are hard-earned, and it was tough racing out there today.”
A mass pile-up in the scratch race, the first of the four events of the omnium, saw the defending champion Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands) crash out of the competition.
Morris, who won the European omnium title in February, was the most consistent throughout the events; she finished third in the scratch race, won the tempo race, and then placed third in the elimination race to head into the final points race with a tally of 112, and a 12-point lead over Tsuyaka Uchino (Japan).
She then cruised through the final to beat Uchino by 11 points.
“I just took each race as it came, and then in the points race, you race against the standings,” Morris said. “I left it all out there, which is what you want at the end of a long day. To come away with the win, I’m really happy with that.”
Gold at last for Stewart
(Image credit: Simon Wilkinson/SWPix)
Stewart‘s mastery in the points race earned him a well-deserved and long-awaited first career world title.
The 31-year-old, a bronze medallist in the same event in 2018 and twice a silver medallist in the Madison, scored in 11 of the 16 sprints in the 160-lap race, winning three of them.
He led by just two points going into the final lap, where second across the line brought his tally to 35 points – seven ahead of the Olympic omnium champion Benjamin Thomas in second.
“Those words – ‘world champion’ and my name – in a sentence, I started to think I wouldn’t hear them,” Stewart said afterwards. “Right now, it feels a bit surreal, to be honest. I’m just over the moon.”
The Scot went on to thank his road team, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, who he said had given him “a new lease of life” since he joined them this season.
“I’ve really found a new strength this year,” he said. “Combine that with the full support of British Cycling – to give an old dog like me a place and somewhere to express myself and race like I do.
“Tonight the race went my way. It was on and off, it was a thousand repeated efforts, and that’s what I like.”
Suspense swelled at the end of the points race as Denmark’s Carl-Frederik Bévort attacked in search of a lap gain. Had he made it, he would have overhauled the standings and catapulted himself to top spot, but ended up narrowly missing the catch before the race ended. Portugal’s Carlos Salgueiro placed third.
In the women’s sprint finals, Emma Finucane sealed a valiant silver medal against home favourite Yuan Liying (China), who beat the Welshwoman 2-0 in the final.
The 21-year-old Chinese rider won her first world title on Wednesday in the team sprint. In the second match-up of the final, she gained a jump on Finucane, previously a two-time world champion herself in the event, to win by a matter of bike lengths.
Great Britain’s Sophie Capewell missed out on the bronze medal in a photofinish decider against Japan’s Mina Sato. The difference was a thousandth of a second.
Milan breaks world record
(Image credit: Alex Whitehead/SWPix)
Elsewhere, Jonathan Milan broke his own world record in qualifying for the men’s individual pursuit, becoming the first person in history to go sub-3:59 with a 3:58.850.
The Italian went on to go almost two seconds slower in the final, but still six seconds faster than his opponent, Denmark’s Frederik Madsen, who himself broke the four-minute barrier in qualifying.
“It was a goal [to break the world record], but I actually didn’t really think about it,” the now two-time individual pursuit world champion said. “It’s not a super, super fast track – it’s an OK track with the conditions. We’re all pushing our best to make the best out of it. I’m just happy for how it went.”
Filippo Ganna, a previous world record holder in the 4km event, took bronze.
In the men’s kilometre time trial, the world record holder Jeffrey Hoogland regained his crown after falling short to his fellow Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen in each of the last two years. Lavreysen, already a team sprint and keirin gold medallist in Shanghai, chose not to defend his title.
France’s Etienne Oliviero finished runner-up, more than six tenths of a second off Hoogland’s winning 58.713 seconds. Great Britain’s Joe Truman claimed the bronze medal for the third year in a row, clocking 59.414 after his visor appeared to fly off his helmet mid-effort.
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