Great Britain’s Anna Morris made it three gold medals from three events at the UCI Track World Championships on Saturday, adding a Madison title to the team pursuit and omnium titles she won earlier in the week.
The 31-year-old teamed up with 19-year-old elite Track Worlds debutant Erin Boothman in the hand-slinging event in Shanghai, China. The pair scored in six of the 12 sprints, won two of them, and gained a lap on the field to win with 40 points ahead of France’s 33.
“I think we did a really good job of how we wanted to execute,” the now seven-time world champion Morris said afterwards.
With the victory, Morris became the first woman to win all three of the team pursuit, omnium, and Madison – the three Olympic endurance events – at a UCI Track Worlds since the Madison was introduced for women in 2017.
“I’m quite speechless,” she said of the feat. “I think it’s going to take a while to sink in. It’s been a busy few days and [I’ve been] just trying to focus on one thing at a time. Now I’ve got a good amount of time to reflect and enjoy all the moments of this week.”
Boothman, already a four-time world champion as a junior, has added two senior world titles to her palmarès this week, having also won the team pursuit on Thursday. She has the chance to win a third in the points race on Sunday.
“I’m excited for it,” the teenager said. “I’m going to give it my best bash. I’m definitely running on high morale from the last two races.”
Couzens 'in shock' at IP win
In an all-British women’s individual pursuit final, Millie Couzens pipped Josie Knight to the gold medal by half a second.
The former British road champion qualified first in the 4km event with a time of 4:21.161 on Saturday morning. She then led from the first lap in the final, going on to clock a 4:21.505, and claim her second world title. Her first, like Boothman, came in the team pursuit on Thursday.
“It’s amazing. I’m still in shock, to be honest,” Couzens said. “I had absolutely zero expectations going in. I was like, ‘If I can get on the podium, that would be a really good result.’ I didn’t expect this.”
On racing against Knight, a double European individual pursuit champion, Couzens said: “It’s always a bit weird racing against a team-mate, but actually it was quite nice: it feels like you’re in it together.”
Elsewhere, Olympic Madison champion Iúri Leitão (Portugal) earned his second world title in the men's omnium. Great Britain’s Henry Hobbs went into the final points race in third, but slipped to sixth overall after various riders gained laps. Fabio Van den Bossche (Belgium) came second and Tim Torn Teutenberg (Germany) third.
The only other medal event on Saturday was the women’s kilometre time trial, which was won by Germany’s Pauline Grabosch. Hetty van de Wouw (Netherlands) took the silver, six tenths of a second down on Grabosh’s winning 1:04.572. Sofie van Rooijen (Netherlands) finished third.
The Track Worlds will come to a close on Sunday with five more world titles on the line: men’s sprint, women’s keirin, women’s points race, men’s elimination race and men’s Madison.
Great Britain currently lead the medal standings with six golds. The last time the nation won as many gold medals was in 2012. They claimed nine in 2008.