Track World Championship: Great Britain win two gold medals

Great Britain won two gold medals at the Track World Championships as Katie Archibald and Maddie Leech won the women’s madison before Anna Morris defended her individual pursuit title.

Archibald, 31, and Leech, 22, delivered a dominant performance to win by six points over France’s Victoire Berteau and Marion Borras, while Italy’s Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini took bronze with 20 points after a crash ended the Netherlands’ challenge.

“The track’s been running really fast this week and I’ve been so excited for this race,” two-time Olympic champion Archibald said.

“The only thing I’ve been scared about is how much it was going to hurt. Everything else has been just a thrill and an opportunity so I was glad to welcome the pain and take home the jersey.

“There’s nine years between us. Maddie was 13 years old when the first women’s madison title was contended.

“She’s grown up with this event as a reality which hasn’t always been the case and it feels pretty cool to be next to somebody on that journey.”

Morris, who won individual pursuit gold at last year’s world championships in Denmark, beat Great Britain team-mate Josie Knight by 2.317 seconds in a comfortable final display in Santiago, Chile.

Knight, 28, was the fastest qualifier for much of the session until the final race of qualifying, when Morris set up an all-British final.

“It’s a new experience warming up with the person you’re going to race against,” Morris said.

“We’ve both trained really hard for this so it was just nice that we could both go out and leave it all on the track and if either won we were both going to be really happy for each other.”

Knight, Morris and Leech all added to their bronze secured in the team pursuit.

In the men’s sprint quarter-finals, Matt Richardson delivered a strong qualifying time of 9.210 seconds to be seeded first and set up a semi-final with Australia’s Leigh Hoffman.