The 2026 Tissot UCI Track World Championships, the first to be held in mainland China, concluded on Sunday after five days of competition (14–18 October) at the Shanghai Velodrome.
With rainbow jerseys at stake in 22 events (11 for women and 11 for men), Team GB topped the medals table with six UCI World Champion titles. Anna Morris led the way, adding three wins to the golden tally she started in 2023. The 31-year-old has now won at least one title at each of the last four editions of the Tissot UCI Track World Championships, bringing her total to seven rainbow jerseys.
Only one athlete matched Morris’s gold medal haul in Shanghai: Dutch icon Harrie Lavreysen, who proved once again that he is the best male sprinter in the world and extended his record to 23 UCI Track World Champion titles. His raw power was once again essential for the Netherlands, who won five gold medals in Shanghai to finish as Team GB’s closest rivals.
Overall, riders from 14 nations, plus an Individual Neutral Athlete, stood on the podium. The host nation impressed in the sprint events, while Italy’s Jonathan Milan rewrote the history books with a world record in the men’s individual pursuit.
Lavreysen and Morris drive Dutch and British dominance
Lavreysen’s status as one of cycling’s greats is well established, and the Dutch star added to his legacy by winning all three events he entered. Nobody could match his power and race craft in the individual sprint, an event he has won at every edition of the UCI Track World Championships since 2019. This time, the 29-year-old beat Australia’s Leigh Hoffman in the final, while Japan’s Kaiya Ota took bronze.
Lavreysen was also unstoppable in the keirin, with Germany’s Maximilian Dörnbach and Japan’s Shinji Nakano taking silver and bronze respectively. The podium was naturally more crowded in the team sprint, where Lavreysen teamed up once more with Roy van den Berg and Jeffrey Hoogland to beat Australia (Hoffman, Daniel Barber and Ryan Elliott) in the final. China (Zhiheng Jin, Zhiwei Li and Qi Liu) took bronze, their first medal in the history of the event.
Hoogland also won the kilometre time trial, his fifth UCI World Champion title in the event and his 13th overall. The Netherlands’ other gold medal in Shanghai came from Lorena Wiebes, who won the women’s scratch race for the third consecutive year.
Leading Team GB’s success, Morris impressed with her versatility. The Welsh rider proved the strongest in the omnium, then teamed up with 19-year-old Erin Boothman to win the Madison. Boothman, who took four gold medals across the 2024 and 2025 UCI Junior Track World Championships, made the step up to Elite level in style. The pair also raced the team pursuit alongside Millie Couzens and Josie Knight, with Megan Barker riding in the first round.
Together, they powered to another gold medal, beating Italy’s Chiara Consonni, Elisa Balsamo, Martina Fidanza and Vittoria Guazzini in the final (Martina Alzini raced the qualifying and first round). The individual pursuit was an all-British affair too, with Couzens beating Knight to gold.
Great Britain’s two remaining gold medals came in the men’s events. Mark Stewart won the points race ahead of France’s Benjamin Thomas, claiming his first rainbow jersey after a silver in the Madison in 2023 and 2025 and a points race bronze in 2018. Matthew Bostock, meanwhile, won his first-ever UCI Track World Championships medals: gold in the scratch race and bronze in the team pursuit.
Doubles for Yuan, Bévort and Leth, a world record for Milan
Among the other riders with multiple UCI World Champion titles in Shanghai, 21-year-old Liying Yuan came of age by winning the women’s individual sprint and, with Yulu Jiang and Mengqi Tong, the team sprint (Xuehuang Luo raced the first round). China had not won these titles since 2015 (team sprint) and 2016 (individual sprint).
Meanwhile, Denmark won the men’s team pursuit for the fourth year in a row. Carl-Frederik Bévort, Lasse Leth, Frederik Madsen and Rasmus Pedersen (Tobias Hansen raced the qualifying) combined strength and skill to beat Italy’s Jonathan Milan, Filippo Ganna, Francesco Lamon and Alessio Magagnotti in the final.
Bévort and Leth also powered to the rainbow jersey in the Madison, ahead of Portugal’s Iúri Leitão (winner of the omnium) and Ivo Oliveira. In the individual pursuit, however, nobody could stop Jonathan Milan, who set a new world record (3:58.850, 60.289 km/h) in qualifying before beating Madsen in the final. Ganna took bronze, beating Pedersen.
Germany claimed two gold medals, through Pauline Grabosch in the women’s kilometre time trial and Tim Torn Teutenberg in the men’s elimination race. The remaining titles went to Alina Lysenko (AIN) in the women’s keirin, Lara Gillespie (IRL) in the women’s points race and Lotte Kopecky (BEL) in the women’s elimination race.