Great Britain’s Jody Cundy pulled out all the stops in front of his home crowd at Glasgow’s Sir Chris Hoy velodrome on Wednesday with a world record in the MC4 200m flying start.
The record time of 10.427 for the 44-year-old multiple UCI World Champion and Olympic Champion came on the first medals day of the para-cycling track competitions, which are part of the UCI Cycling World Championships taking place in Glasgow and across Scotland.
Cundy, who only managed 12th place in the individual pursuit, lies 6th in the MC4 Omnium with the 1000m time trial and Scratch race still to come. After the first two events, France’s Gatien le Rousseau leads the standings followed by fellow Frenchman Kevin le Cunff (winner of the individual pursuit).
Another highlight of the action in Glasgow was the gold medal won by the Dutch tandem of Tristan Bangma and Patrick Bos in the 4km individual pursuit. After setting one of four individual pursuit world records (3:58.766 for an average of over 60km/h) established across different categories in qualifications the previous day, the Dutch duo gave another masterclass in Thursday’s final. Up against France (Alexandre Lloveras and Louis Pijourlet) in the final, the Dutch were on course for another world record before catching their opponents and easing the pace.
The Dutch also took the honours in the Women C5 500m time trial thanks to pre-race favourite Caroline Groot, who added to the golds she won in this event in 2019, 2020 and 2022. France’s Marie Patouillet and New Zealand’s Nicole Murray took silver and bronze respectively.
Another much awaited athlete on the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome was Frenchman Alexandre Léauté, who at just 22 years of age, already has six UCI World titles to his name on the track and four on the road. After breaking the MC2 individual pursuit world record in qualifications (3:25.888) Léauté looked in total control in the final and passed his rival Darren Hicks (AUS) with two laps to go.
Other gold medals on Thursday went to Daniel Abraham Gebru (NED) in the MC5 Scratch race, Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl (GBR) in the WB 1km time trial, Zhangyu Li (CHN) in the MC1 individual pursuit and Keiko Sugiura (JPN) in the WC3 individual pursuit.
Results and live timing on the UCI website.
Brief explanation of para-cycling sport classes for the track
C – Cycle: conventional bike with adaptations if necessary
B – Tandem: for blind or visually impaired athlete with sighted pilot
Group C (1-5) is divided into different sport classes, with the lower the number indicating greater impairment.