Italy’s Jonathan Milan broke his own individual pursuit world record at the UCI Track World Championships on Friday.
The 26-year-old clocked a time of 3:58.850 in qualifying in the 4km event in Shanghai, China, becoming the first rider in history to go below 3:59.
The velodrome in Shanghai is located at sea level, meaning Milan did not benefit from the low air density of higher-altitude efforts. Low air density reduces aerodynamic drag.
His previous benchmark was 3:59.153, set at the Track Worlds two years ago in Ballerup, Denmark.
A two-time Tour de France stage winner who rides for Lidl-Trek on the road, the Italian will face Frederik Madsen (Denmark) in the gold medal final at around 12:20 BST on Friday.
Madsen qualified in 3:59.979 on Friday, and himself became only the fifth rider to break the four-minute mark.
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The individual pursuit, though not part of the Olympic programme, is one of the blue ribbon events at track cycling championships. It consists of a single rider completing 16 laps of a 250m track – 4km – from a standing start.
During the event, two riders start their efforts on opposite sides of the track. While it is only each rider's time that seeds them in qualifying, if one rider catches the other in the finals, they are declared the winner.
Filippo Ganna (Italy) and Rasmus Pedersen (Denmark) qualified third and fourth on Friday, and will compete in the bronze medal ride-off.
Ganna has previously broken the world record four times: twice in 2019, once in 2020, and then again in 2022 with a 3:59.636.
That benchmark stood for two years before Great Britain’s Josh Charlton bettered it at the 2024 Track Worlds with a 3:59.304.
At the time, the then 21-year-old Charlton said he was in “total shock”. He kept his world record for around six hours before Milan beat it, and him, with a gold-medal ride in the final.
The first person to go sub-four minutes in the individual pursuit was Ashton Lambie (USA). The American clocked 3:59.930 at a behind-closed-doors event at altitude in Aguascalientes, Mexico in 2021.
The individual pursuit was removed from the Olympic programme after the 2008 Games in Beijing, China, and was replaced by the Omnium.