Going into a final of an international competition with a line-up that has never been practised or tested before is not ideal in anyone’s book, but Team England didn’t have a huge amount of choice at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow yesterday, when Josh Charlton vomited all over a teammate’s bike after a morning qualifying round.
When it became clear that Charlton was unwell, a decision was made to roll the dice and swap one world champion for another, with Will Tidball being suddenly subbed into the four-man line-up for the team pursuit, joining Ethan Vernon, Charlie Tanfield and teenage sensation Henry Hobbs, who is taking part in his first major tournament.
And it paid off massively, with England beating rivals and Olympic champions Australia in a dramatic final, to take the country’s first gold medal in the velodrome and set a new Commonwealth Games record to boot.
Latest Videos FromCycling Weekly
A somewhat esoteric event, the Team Pursuit sees a quartet of cyclists attempt to ride four kilometres as quickly as possible, with the team’s finish time taken from the third rider to cross the line, so often the strongest athlete will go out front and set a blistering pace before falling back towards the end of the race.
Typically, the first three riders will cross the line in a tight group, but in the morning qualifying round Charlton came adrift, and at the finish it was confirmed that he was unwell.
“To get subbed in, having not done any efforts in this team, or in this track, or in this order, it was always going to be a bit of a gamble,” Tidball told the BBC afterwards. “At the end of the day it’s just riding around in circles.”
Super sub William Tidball of Team England celebrates his surprise victory in the Men’s 4000m Team Pursuit Finals Gold race in the Track Cycling at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It was very dramatic final, which saw Hobbs heroically clinging on so England cold hold together as a quartet for three laps after the Aussies went down to three, providing a vital advantage to his teammates.
“Henry did way longer than he should have done on the front and so did Charlie,” Vernon said to the BBC afterwards. “I could tell we were up but we were also starting to fall apart a bit… I was glancing across the track and trying to do enough to not drop my team-mate but also stay ahead of the Aussies.”
For Vernon and Tanfield in particular, who were both part of the Team GB quartet beaten by Australia in the final at the Paris Olympics, it was sweet revenge. But for Charlton, watching from the sidelines did nothing to calm his churning stomach.
“It was more nerve-wracking than being in it,” he told the BBC. “It was tight at times but I had faith they were going to pull away at the end and they did.”
In the end Tidball, Tanfield, Vernon and Hobbs won with a margin of 1.131 seconds, and remarkably they also set a new Commonwealth Games record, with a time of three minutes 47.092 seconds.
