Mark Stewart and Anna Morris secured two more world titles for the United Kingdom on the third day of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Shanghai, China. Stewart won the men’s points race to claim the first world title of his career at the age of 31, while Morris triumphed in the women’s omnium after a dominant performance throughout the day. These victories brought the total number of world titles won by British riders in endurance events to four since the start of the championships, following the successes in the women’s team pursuit and the men’s scratch race. Joe Truman and Emma Finucane also contributed to the United Kingdom’s medal haul, adding a bronze and a silver respectively.
Mark Stewart and Anna Morris crowned world champions!
The points race and the omnium are two endurance disciplines that reward tactical awareness and the ability to manage effort as much as physical strength. In the points race, riders accumulate points through intermediate sprints held throughout the event, with additional points available for lapping the field. The omnium follows a different format, comprising four consecutive events: the scratch race, tempo race, elimination race and points race. The results from all four determine the overall standings.
In the men’s points race, Mark Stewart finally claimed the world title that had been missing from his palmarès. The 31-year-old British rider dominated the 160-lap event, scoring in 11 of the 16 intermediate sprints, including three victories. His consistency kept him near the top of the standings until the closing laps, in a race where the margins can change rapidly through surges of pace and attempts to gain a lap on the field. The outcome remained uncertain until the final lap. Stewart held a lead of just two points, while Denmark’s Carl-Frederik Bévort launched an attack in an attempt to take a lap and turn the standings on their head. However, his move ultimately came to nothing. Stewart finished second in the final sprint, taking his total to 35 points and securing victory by seven points ahead of Frenchman Benjamin Thomas, the reigning Olympic champion in the discipline. Portugal’s Carlos Salgueiro completed the podium.
The world title rewards a rider who had already achieved several significant results on the international stage. Stewart won bronze in the points race at the 2018 World Championships and has also claimed two silver medals in the madison. His triumph in Shanghai therefore represents a long-awaited milestone for an experienced endurance specialist who has continued to compete at the highest level over the years.
In the women’s competition, Anna Morris reinforced her status as one of the United Kingdom’s leading riders by winning the omnium. Having already been crowned European champion in the discipline in February, the 31-year-old British rider produced a highly consistent performance across all four events. She finished third in the scratch race, won the tempo race and then secured another third place in the elimination race. Before the final points race, Morris had amassed 112 points, giving her a 12-point advantage over Japan’s Tsuyaka Uchino.
That cushion allowed her to approach the final event from a strong position, particularly after reigning world champion Lorena Wiebes had been forced to abandon following a crash. However, the omnium demands concentration right to the finish, as points gained or lost in the final race can directly alter the overall standings. Drawing on her experience, Morris managed the decisive round superbly, keeping her rivals under control and retaining enough of her advantage to win by 11 points over Uchino. She thus claimed another world title following her earlier success in the team pursuit at these championships. It was another major achievement in a 2026 season that had already brought her two European titles and two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The United Kingdom also secured two medals in the sprint events. Joe Truman won bronze in the men’s kilometre time trial, clocking 59.414 seconds to finish third in the discipline for the third consecutive year. Emma Finucane, meanwhile, took silver in the women’s sprint after losing the final to China’s Yuan Liying in straight rides. These two results rounded off an especially successful day for the British squad in Shanghai. The only disappointment came for Sophie Capewell, who was beaten by just one thousandth of a second in the deciding ride of the sprint bronze-medal match.
