The 51st edition of the UCI Junior Track World Championships gets under way in Heusden-Zolder this week (19 to 23 August). The Belgian city has already hosted UCI World Championships for road (in 1969 and 2002) cyclo-cross (1970, 2002, 2016), and BMX Racing (2015 and 2019).
This will be the third edition of the UCI Junior Track World Championships in Belgium, after Liège (1976) and Ghent (2006). Many former winners at Junior level have gone on to shine on the Elite stage. In 1975, Switzerland’s Robert Dill-Bundi, was the first cyclist to win a Junior Track UCI World title, in the individual pursuit. He won the same event in Liège the following year, before continuing his career with titles of Olympic Champion and Elite UCI World Champion. Thirty years later, Junior rainbow jerseys were awarded to icons such as Great Britain’s Jason Kenny (who later won seven Olympic titles) and Australia’s Cameron Meyer (nine-time Elite UCI World Champion), to name just a few.
The Sport Vlaanderen Heusden-Zolder Velodrome opened in 2023 and hosted the 2025 UEC Track Elite European Championships. Its 250-metre wooden track notably saw Team GB’s Anna Morris lower the women’s individual pursuit world record two times, while the Netherlands’ Hetty van de Wouw set a new world benchmark in the women’s kilometre time trial.
This week, Junior athletes (born in 2008 or 2009) from 47 nations will follow in their prestigious tracks.
Over five days of competition, 22 titles of UCI World Champion will be at stake (11 each for men and women). Athletes will compete across the six specialities on the programme of the Olympic Games - keirin, Madison, omnium, sprint, team pursuit, team sprint - as well as the elimination, individual pursuit, points race, kilometre time trial and scratch race.
The competition schedule is published on the UCI website.
Global rising stars to set new benchmarks
Among the first-year Juniors who left striking impressions last year, Denmark’s Ida Fialla (gold medallist in the women’s individual pursuit, silver in the Madison and the omnium) returns to show her progress just a few days after her 18th birthday. She will battle again with the USA’s Emma Louise Jimenez Palos, who came second to Fialla in the individual pursuit and won the scratch race. Meanwhile, Veronika Solozobova dominated the individual sprint and gears up to defend her title as well as participate in the team sprint, keirin, and kilometre time trial.
Endurance events have often favoured British talents in recent years, and Phoebe Taylor is back to build on the two gold medals she took last year (team pursuit and Madison), most notably partnering up with Erin Boothman (who took two golds in 2024 and 2025, and has now stepped up to Under 23 and even Elite events). Her compatriots Ioan Hepburn and Kristian Larigo, members of last year’s winning men’s team sprint squad, are also set for more glory. The same goes for Daniel Thompson, who podiumed the team pursuit (2nd) and the individual pursuit (3rd). He will notably face Germany’s Lenny Karstedt, who contributed to Germany’s bronze medal in the team pursuit. Look out also for Germany’s Leonidas Rekowski, a bronze medallist last year in the team sprint, and who took two Europeans titles in Cottbus, Germany, last month. As for Italy’s Jacopo Vendramin, he took three bronze medals last year (scratch race, omnium, elimination) and recently conquered gold in the elimination at the UEC Track Juniors European Championships.
Many more riders with multiple continental titles will set the Sport Vlaanderen Heusden-Zolder Velodrome ablaze. Among them, Colombia’s Manuela Loaiza, who set the Junior world record for the kilometre time trial (1’07’’659) at the Panamerican Junior Track Championships in May.