Ahead of the 2026 UCI Track World Cup, kicking off early March in Perth (Australia), we dive into the frenetic action witnessed in velodromes around the globe since the 19th century. A traditional discipline, deeply rooted in the history of competitive cycling, track is also very much a cutting-edge sport, as elite riders are about to illustrate with performances powered by top-end technology.
Back to the origins
The history of competitive cycling takes us back to the late 19th century. As bicycles spread as a means of travel and transport, the first races emerged, giving athletes the opportunity to show their power, endurance and grit. While some set out to conquer the world on open roads, leading to Classics and Grand Tours, others took it to purpose-built tracks, for standardised effort that could be compared independently of when and where they happened.
Track cycling competitions illustrate both the strength of riders and the capabilities of their bikes. At the 1893 World’s Fair, a track was constructed at the Chicago (USA) baseball grounds, where the first cycling world titles were awarded to the USA’s Arthur Zimmerman (winner of the sprint and the 10km) and South Africa’s Lawrence Meintjes (motor-paced). The large-scale event was sanctioned by the International Cycling Association, the first international body governing cycling competition, created in 1892 and whose role was taken over by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 1900.
Professional riders were allowed to participate from 1895, a year before the first modern Olympic Games, in Athens, where five titles were awarded in track cycling. Since then, the discipline has markedly evolved, to remain a staple of the sport of cycling.
State of the art
Fast forward to the 21st century, and Elite riders are now dreaming of the rainbow jerseys waiting to be claimed this October in Shanghai, at the first UCI World Championships for Elite track cycling to be held in China (the UCI Junior Track Worlds were hosted in Luoyang in 2024), a year after another first, in Chile (Santiago).
In Shanghai, they will illuminate one of the world’s most modern velodromes, a venue which opened in December 2023 and has served since 2024 as the home for the UCI WCC Continental Development Satellite Shanghai, China. The 250-metre track is surfaced with European red pine, has a width of 7.5 metres, a maximum incline of 45° on the bends and a minimum incline of 13° on straight lines. Every track in the world is the specific result of advanced research to support high end performances.
As per UCI rules, “the length of the track must lie between 133 metres and 500 metres inclusive [and] shall be such that a whole number of laps or half laps shall give a distance of precisely 1 kilometre, with a tolerance of + 5 centimetres.” Tracks measuring 250 metres are the most common, as they are the standard for the UCI World Championships and the Olympic Games.
Precision is a must for track cycling, a discipline that has seen riders develop pioneering concepts in their pursuit of performance. As decades went by, bike manufacturers replaced steel with carbon fibres, video and data analysis took on a major role, and staff and riders worked relentlessly on aerodynamics. All of that in pursuit of one goal – to fly on the track.
Raw performances and savvy racing
Modern track cycling offers a wide array of efforts and emotions, from sub-10’’ bursts to record setting 1-hour efforts. Nowadays, 22 UCI World Champion titles are at stake each year: 11 for men and 11 for women. These include the six events on the Olympic Games programme – keirin, Madison, omnium, sprint, team pursuit and team sprint – as well as the elimination, individual pursuit, points race, kilometre time trial and scratch.
Track events can be divided into two main categories: sprint and endurance. The former category has most recently been embodied by the Netherlands’ Harrie Lavreysen, storming velodromes at more than 70 km/h to become the rider who has claimed the most UCI Track World Champion titles ever, thanks to the 2,000+ watts packed in his legs. Endurance disciplines also favour versatile talents such as the USA Kristen Faulkner, who claimed a gold medal on the track and on the road at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Other stars such as Italy’s Filippo Ganna are celebrated for mixing track and road racing, following icons such as his countryman Fausto Coppi and France’s Jacques Anquetil, who set memorable Hour Records in velodromes. Ganna is the current holder of the men’s UCI Hour Record presented by Tissot – 56.792km covered in October 2022 in Granges (Switzerland) – and he dreams of glory in the velodrome of Roubaix at the end of Paris-Roubaix, the revered road Monument. Velodromes are arenas of pure emotion.