SHANGHAI — Olympic team sprint champions Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell will lead Great Britain at the 2026 Track World Championships at the Shanghai Velodrome, where 22 titles are at stake from 14 to 18 October in the first track cycling qualifying event for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, live on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.
Great Britain finished second in the standings in 2025 as the Netherlands took top spot with nine gold medals, with Harrie Lavreysen the dominant force for the Dutch after winning four golds in the Keirin, Sprint, 1km Time Trial and Team Sprint. GB are without two decorated figures this time, with reigning Madison world champion Katie Archibald having hung up her cleats in May to pursue a career in nursing and Olympic team sprint champion Katy Marchant having announced her retirement last month.
GB have still named a strong squad containing eight riders who have won world titles and eight Olympic medallists. Finucane and Capewell will hope to regain their world team sprint title, with Welsh rider Finucane arriving in Shanghai after a brilliant summer which saw her win a record four golds at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Glasgow gold medallist Lowri Thomas and world and Commonwealth medallist Rhianna Parris-Smith complete the women's sprint team, while exciting young endurance prospects Millie Couzens, Erin Boothman and Abi Miller will all make their elite World Championships debuts alongside former world champions Meg Barker and Josie Knight and reigning individual pursuit champion Anna Morris.
On the men's side, Commonwealth Games silver and bronze medallist Harry Ledingham-Horn will hope to improve on last year's World Championships team sprint silver medal, while Matt Richardson — who beat Lavreysen to win the European sprint title earlier this year — returns from injury. The men's sprint contingent is completed by the experienced Joe Truman and Ed Lowe, who won Olympic silver in the team sprint at Paris 2024. Endurance veterans Ethan Vernon, Mark Stewart and Ollie Wood, who have 15 Olympic and world medals between them, bring experience, with brothers Noah and Henry Hobbs and Matt Bostock completing the men's endurance squad.
Riders will compete for the coveted rainbow jerseys across disciplines split between endurance and sprint. Coverage includes the women's scratch race and team sprint final, men's team pursuit final, keirin finals and scratch race, women's elimination race and team pursuit final, men's points race, time trial and individual pursuit final, women's time trial, madison and individual pursuit final, men's sprint final, elimination race and madison, and the women's points race and keirin final.