'I'm so surprised, I can't believe it' – Charlie Tanfield downs world champion to win individual pursuit title at British Track Championships

It took a “huge” PB and career-best power numbers for Charlie Tanfield to beat the world champion to the individual pursuit title at the British National Track Championships on Thursday evening.

The 29-year-old knocked 1.7 seconds off his personal best when he qualified top with a 4:02.822 inside the Manchester Velodrome. He then carried his form into the final, leading against the national record holder Josh Charlton for more than three quarters of the 4km event, and beating him by over four seconds.

Ahead of the race, photographers flocked to Charlton to capture his first outing in the rainbow bands he won last October. They then found themselves dashing across the track centre to shoot Tanfield, the against-the-odds winner, as he left the boards smiling, applauded by the crowds.

“You can’t race against a better rider than the world champion,” Tanfield told Cycling Weekly afterwards. “I just wanted to come here and do a good ride. I’m so surprised, so surprised. I can’t believe it, to be honest.”

Across the two rides, Tanfield, a previous IP champion in 2018 and 2023, revealed he did “the best power numbers I’ve ever done”. His latest victory came six months after he attempted the Hour Record, but fell short, still setting the seventh furthest distance of all time.

“It helps with your positioning,” he said of his Hour Record training, “and I feel more robust in my second ride and in the back-end of rides. I’m not dropping off as much anymore.

“I think I was sort of stagnating a bit with my training, and after my Hour, I kind of switched things up, and I’m responding quite well to it.”

Seventeen-year-old Leon Atkins won the bronze medal in the event. The teenager will join Lidl-Trek’s academy squad next year.

Morris defends scratch title

Earlier in the evening, the newly crowned European omnium champion Anna Morris defended her national title in the scratch race, trouncing the field with a final-lap dash.

The first attacks came with six laps to go in the 40-lap event, when Team GB’s Josie Knight peeled off the front of the bunch. Morris reacted fastest to close the move down, and did so again four laps later when Jenny Holl and Phoebe Taylor catapulted to the front with two laps remaining.

“I tried to jump on them, did what I could to the line, and luckily that was enough,” Morris, a now six-time national track champion, said.

“It was the most chaotic last six laps I think I’ve raced,” she added. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a scratch race like it, and that’s part of the fun of racing a scratch race: everyone goes in with different tactics.”

Holl and Taylor held the momentum of their attack to place second and third.

Elsewhere on day one of the British Track Championships, para-cyclist Archie Atkinson won the first national title of the event, sprinting to victory in the rainbow bands in the C4-5 scratch race.

There were also new national honours for Crystal Lane-Wright in the women’s C5 elimination race, Elisabeth Simpson in the women's C2 elimination race, Fin Graham in the men's C1-3 scratch race, and the tandem mixed sprint team named ‘Jean Claude Tan Damme’: Sophie Unwin, Jenny Holl, James Ball and Matt Rotherham.

The four-day championships continue on Friday, when double European champion Matthew Richardson will be in action in the sprint. Richardson qualified first in the event on Thursday, as he began his defence of the three titles he won last year.

Fans can stream all the action for free on British Cycling's YouTube channel.