Llori Sharpe, the lone Jamaican cyclist that journeyed to the Caribbean Road Cycling Championships, had much to celebrate as she returned to the island with a silver medal for her efforts.

Sharpe contested the 20km individual Time Trial, as well as the 70km at the two-day Championships in Guadeloupe where she placed sixth and second respectively.

Through an extremely hilly terrain, and the mid-afternoon temperatures, Sharpe was able to take advantage of the climbs and led a breakaway away from the pack halfway through lap number two. She was joined by one of the four home cyclists in the race and cyclist from Martinique.

The three held the pace for 5km, after which the Martinique cyclist was left behind. Both Sharpe and Clemence Briche from Guadeloupe kept widening the gap from the chasing pack from an initial 45 seconds to 90 seconds.

At the end of the three-lap event, both cyclists were comfortably ahead by 4 minutes. Sharpe completed the 70 km in 2 hours 8 minutes and 29.66 seconds, for the silver medal, just under 5 seconds behind Guadeloupe’s Briche, who won in 2 hours 8 minutes 23.89 seconds. Martinique’s Kellieanne Julus was next in 2 hours 12 minutes 42 seconds to complete the top three.

Though no Jamaican males participated in the championships, from a field of 50 male cyclists at the start of the six-lap 140km road race only 19 finished. Some faded from exhaustion, while others were pulled after being lapped.

The Jamaica Cycling Federation said it intended to have more cyclists participate at the event. However, the logistics and visa requirements for travel to Guadeloupe made things difficult.

Tom Pidcock has admitted he faces pressure from the Ineos Grenadiers to put greater focus on the Tour de France but the world and Olympic mountain bike champion is determined to keep enjoying multiple disciplines for a little while longer.

The 24-year-old is seen as a potential future Tour winner but though he took a famous stage victory on the Alpe d’Huez in 2022 and rode to 13th overall this year, the Yorkshireman is yet to concentrate solely on the road, and this year added the world mountain bike title to his Olympic crown.

Pidcock also won the cyclo-cross world title last year, and while his pursuit of multiple goals is delaying the day when he might be ready to chase Tour glory, he believes a varied approach is making him a better all-round rider.

“Maybe I need to specialise in one discipline if I want to win the Tour, but I know that you’ll get the best out of me when I’m happy and when I’m enjoying it,” Pidcock said on the Red Bull Just Ride podcast. “Which is why I love other disciplines…

“Of course I want to win the Tour de France one day but the patience and preparation is massive.

“There is the element (of pressure from the team) and I knew that when I committed long term to the team. I also want it, but in my own way. I want to achieve all the things I believe I can achieve…

“Right now, I’m not ready to win the Tour de France next year yet. There has to be more steps where I achieve things in different disciplines and achieving them makes me a better rider.”

Pidcock was speaking after the Mountain Bike World Cup event in Mont-Sainte-Anne, where he won the cross-country race to continue preparations for his Olympic title defence next summer.

Pidcock has also enjoyed success on the road this season, winning Strade Bianche in March before podium finishes at the Amstel Gold Race and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

But Ineos, a team who won the Tour seven times out of eight between 2012 and 2019, have found themselves left behind at the world’s biggest race in recent years as UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma have come to the fore, and the Grenadiers need a lift.

While Pidcock could perhaps emerge as a rival if he went all-in, he is reluctant to do so – the three-week slog of the Tour at odds with his instinctive style.

Looking back to his Alpe d’Huez win, he added: “You’re the centre of attention but only for a couple of hours – then you’re back to it with massage and food. Before you know it, you’re on the next stage the next day and there’s a new winner so it’s done.

“Compared to when I won the Olympics where you’re on the front of all the newspapers back home and people want interviews and chats that you could live off for months. With the Tour, it never stops and you have to be ready to race again.”

Pidcock plans to ride the Tour again next summer, but has to balance that with his ambitions in both the mountain bike race and the road race at the Paris Olympics, which begin only eight days after the Tour finishes in Nice.

The tight schedule is behind his decision to keep chasing mountain bike qualification points late into the year.

“By doing these races at the end of the year now, it will mean I don’t have to do the mountain bike races in the spring which will allow me better prep for the Tour,” he said.

“Then I’ll hopefully come out of the end of that in a better condition to cope with the start of the Olympics.”

:: Tom Pidcock is a Red Bull athlete. He was speaking on the latest Red Bull Just Ride podcast. Listen to the full episode here.

It is a sign of Anna Shackley’s ambitions that she looks back on a big summer of results and thinks first of what she missed out on.

There has been a pile of under-23 medals – gold at the British national championships, silver at the euros and bronze on home roads in Glasgow at the worlds, then second place overall at the Tour de l’Avenir, plus a WorldTour top-10 at the Tour de Romandie.

But the 22-year-old Scot starts by saying she wanted more from a season disrupted by a knee injury which cost her the best part of three months, ruling her out of the Ardennes Classics and La Vuelta.

“At the start of the year I wouldn’t say it had been a very good year for me at all,” Shackley told the PA news agency. “It’s been a really nice last couple of months and I’ve improved a lot but I probably haven’t achieved what I wanted to achieve.”

It is hard to say which is the most significant of Shackley’s results this season. While the podium places have all come at under-23 level, seventh overall at the Tour de Romandie pointed to her ability to compete with the world’s best even as she was helping team-mate Demi Vollering to overall victory.

But her second place at the Tour de l’Avenir in early September, in the first women’s edition of the prestigious under-23 event, showed why Shackley is seen as a future contender to win the world’s biggest stage races.

“It was really nice having l’Avenir (on the calendar),” she said. “It was a full five-day tour of only under-23 riders so it helps you grow in confidence, having that leadership role. You’re the ones making the pace and not the ones hanging on for dear life.

“I was pretty lucky (the first edition) came in my last year as an under-23 and I can do it before I’m too old.”

Leadership roles can be hard to come by for Shackley, who rides for the mighty SD Worx squad.

She got an opportunity at the UAE Tour but Shackley is competing with a stacked roster that includes Tour de France winner Vollering, world champion Lotte Kopecky, star sprinter Lorena Wiebes and Marlen Reusser to name but a few.

The Dutch team has been utterly dominant in 2023, piling up 62 victories in all.

“It’s been really nice but a very strange year,” Shackley said. “This is not normal to win so many races. The team are understandably very happy with the year but it’s been a bit insane to be riding in the same team with people like Lotte, Demi and Lorena, who can achieve so much.”

This was Shackley’s third year with the team, and the young Glaswegian is still trying to learn as much as she can from her illustrious team-mates.

“It’s a Dutch team so it’s quite loud and you have to stand up for yourself or you get drowned out but they’ve always been pretty accepting and supportive,” she said.

“I’m not sure if the Dutch are people who do an arm around the shoulder so much but it works with me anyway.”

As she looks towards 2024, Shackley’s goal is to turn one of those second places into first. But with the door closing on her time in the under-23 ranks, she knows it will only get harder.

“Each year I’ve been improving a little bit and becoming more assured of myself,” Shackley said. “If I was to win a race next year, I would be more than happy…

“Leaving the under-23 category makes you feel quite old and now there’s a bit more pressure to step up. But that’s life, you move on. I’m looking forward to it.”

Mark Cavendish will postpone his retirement plans to race on in 2024 and target a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win.

The Manxman confirmed the long-rumoured news in a short video on Wednesday morning, saying, “Just one more year, hey?”

The 38-year-old had announced during the Giro d’Italia in May that he intended to end his glittering career this winter, and went into this summer’s Tour seeking the stage win that would move him clear of Eddy Merckx after he equalled the Belgian on 34 stage wins in 2021.

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But a day after coming just a few metres short of victory in Bordeaux, hampered by a mechanical issue in the finale, Cavendish crashed on stage eight and suffered a broken collarbone, ending his race.

Speculation that he might race on has swirled ever since, fuelled by his Astana-Qazaqstan team boss Alexander Vinokourov saying he was eager to retain the Manxman’s services for another season.

On Wednesday the team issued a social media post showing video clips of Cavendish at the Tour and saying “It’s not over yet”.

Cavendish then followed it with a short video in which he said he had been persuaded to race on by his family.

“I was ready, I was at peace but the more I’ve ridden this summer, I just love riding my bike,” Cavendish said. “I’ve spoken to the kids, ‘What should Dad do?’ And it was, ‘Carry on, it’s not a question’, so here we are. Just one more year, hey?”

Cavendish said the support of his team had also helped him make the decision.

“I’d guessed that was me done this year, I’d announced my retirement and I was looking forward to not having to get up and train in any weather conditions and not be away from home, spend time with the kids,” he said.

“Ultimately I’d miss racing, I love racing but I was happy, I was in a happy place and I knew I could go out on top. Obviously it wasn’t the finish I was hoping for, crashing at the Tour but it is what it is.

“We’d grown incredibly as a team, Astana-Qazaqstan this year and it felt like a family, so much so that the first thing Vino (Vinokourov) said to me when I crashed in France was, ‘Why don’t you do one more year?'”

Cavendish has not raced since his crash at the Tour as he recovered from surgery to repair his collarbone, but is expected to line up at the Tour of Turkey which starts on October 8.

Cavendish joined the Astana team in 2023 after a planned move to B&B Hotels collapsed, and took victory on the final stage of the Giro d’Italia in May, days after announcing his retirement plans.

Although he had previously stayed quiet on his future plans, the Astana team had continued to build a lead-out train to support his sprinting ambitions, signing Max Kanter and Davide Ballerini. They have also been linked with Michael Morkov, who helped Cavendish win four stages of the Tour in 2021.

That was the year that Cavendish defied the odds to move level with Merckx’s record, having only joined what was then the Deceuninck-QuickStep team on a short-term minimum salary deal after being left without a contract going into the season, fearing his career was over.

But when an injury to Sam Bennett ruled the Irishman out of the Tour, Cavendish seized the chance to roll back the years with a remarkable sporting comeback, winning stages four, six, 10 and 13.

They were his first stage wins at the Tour since 2016, and completed a long comeback from a battle with the Epstein-Barr virus and a subsequent diagnosis of clinical depression.

Mark Cavendish will postpone his retirement plans to race on in 2024 and target a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win.

The 38-year-old had announced during the Giro d’Italia in May that he intended to end his glittering career this winter, and went into this summer’s Tour seeking the stage win that would move him clear of Eddy Merckx after he equalled the Belgian on 34 stage wins in 2021.

But a day after coming just a few metres short of victory in Bordeaux, hampered by a mechanical issue in the finale, Cavendish crashed on stage eight and suffered a broken collarbone, ending his race.

Speculation that he might race on has swirled ever since, fuelled by his Astana-Qazaqstan team boss Alexander Vinokourov saying he was eager to retain the Manxman’s services for another season.

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On Wednesday the team issued a social media post showing video clips of Cavendish at the Tour and saying “It’s not over yet”.

The team will publish more details regarding Cavendish’s plans later on Wednesday.

Cavendish has not raced since his crash at the Tour as he recovered from surgery to repair his collarbone, but is expected to line up at the Tour of Turkey which starts on October 8.

Cavendish joined the Astana team in 2023 after a planned move to B&B Hotels collapsed, and took victory on the final stage of the Giro d’Italia in May, days after announcing his retirement plans.

Although he has stayed silent on his future plans, the Astana team have continued to build a lead-out train to support his sprinting ambitions, signing Max Kanter and Davide Ballerini. They have also been linked with Michael Morkov, who helped Cavendish win four stages of the Tour in 2021.

That was the year that Cavendish defied the odds to move level with Merckx’s record, having only joined what was then the Deceuninck-QuickStep team on a short-term minimum salary deal after being left without a contract going into the season, fearing his career was over.

But when an injury to Sam Bennett ruled the Irishman out of the Tour, Cavendish seized the chance to roll back the years with a remarkable sporting comeback, winning stages four, six, 10 and 13.

They were his first stage wins at the Tour since 2016, and completed a long comeback from a battle with the Epstein-Barr virus and a subsequent diagnosis of clinical depression.

Sir Bradley Wiggins won gold in the men’s time trial at the Road World Championships in Spain on this day in 2014.

Wiggins clocked 56 minutes 25.52 seconds for the 47.1-kilometre route in Ponferrada to win by an emphatic margin of 26.23secs.

Germany’s Tony Martin, seeking a fourth straight world title, had to settle for silver, while Tom Dumoulin of Holland took bronze.

It was Britain’s first gold in the event in 20 years, since Chris Boardman won the inaugural edition of the road time trial.

Wiggins said: “I paced it perfectly. I still had gas in the final. Even on the last descent, I knew I was ahead, but I was pushing all the way.

“I don’t know what to say. I knew coming into it that I had the legs.

“Once I saw the course I knew if I was ever going to beat Tony it would be here.”

Wiggins – Olympic time-trial champion as well as Tour de France champion in 2012 – added a first road world title to multiple golds he had achieved at World Championships on the track.

In a potentially precedent-setting move, lawyers at New City Chambers, representing Dahlia Palmer, a Jamaican cyclist based in Trinidad and Tobago, have issued a final written warning to the Jamaican Cycling Federation. The letter, sent on September 20, 2023, threatens legal action against the federation unless they reconsider their suspension of Ms. Palmer's coach, Mr. Robert Farrier, and permit his attendance at the 2023 Pan Am Games and future events.

The legal dispute stems from a series of events that have unfolded over the past months. In May 2023, the federation's Secretary, Ms. Donna-Kaye Sharpe, sent an email stating that athletes, coaches, and managers must fund their participation in the Pan American Track Championships. These championships served as a crucial qualifier for the PANAM Games 2023 and the Olympic Games 2024.

Ms. Palmer and Mr. Farrier decided to self-fund their participation, a decision that eventually led to Ms. Palmer's impressive performance at the championships, securing her qualification for the PANAM Games 2023.

However, issues arose when Ms. Palmer opted not to attend the CAC Games 2023. She cited her lack of trust in the accompanying coach, Mr. Carlton Simmonds, as a primary reason. Mr. Farrier expressed concerns about Coach Simmonds during a virtual conference in May 2023, indicating that Ms. Palmer preferred to focus on events like the championships that held Olympic qualification status.

On June 7, 2023, the federation sent letters to both Ms. Palmer and Mr. Farrier expressing disapproval of Ms. Palmer's non-attendance at the CAC Games and concerns about Mr. Farrier's comments regarding Coach Simmonds. Mr. Farrier, to his surprise, received a 12-month suspension in response.

As tensions mounted, the federation requested a meeting with Ms. Palmer on August 31, 2023, to discuss her non-attendance at the CAC Games and the Olympics 2024. Ms. Palmer insisted that any discussions about her cycling career must include Mr. Farrier, her coach and manager.

Attorney Amy Rajkumar, whose signature appears beneath the missive, argues that the federation's actions amount to breaches of duty and an abuse of power. They emphasize that the federation never provided additional staff or financial support for Olympic qualifiers attended by Ms. Palmer. Moreover, Mr. Farrier was never selected to accompany athletes during fully funded events organized by the association.

The lawyers contend that the federation's suspension of Mr. Farrier, their refusal to provide a copy of the Federation's Constitution and Selection Policy, and their financial negligence violate the International Olympic Committee Code of Ethics, which highlights principles like safety, well-being, and respect for universal ethical standards.

The letter concludes with a request that the federation reconsiders their decisions, lifts Mr. Farrier's suspension, and fully funds Ms. Palmer's attendance at the PANAM Games 2023. Failure to comply by noon on September 26, 2023, will result in legal action against the federation.

Jamaica's young cyclists Cajur Chue, Khalil Francis and Melaika Russell all registered credible performances during the recently-concluded two-day Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships in the Dominican Republic.

The three were among 56 athletes across 13 countries that participated in the championships, where Jamaica finished second on the medal table with three medals behind host nation which had nine medals. Puerto Rico completed the top three with two medals.

Chue, National Juvenile Time Trial champion, competed in the Juvenile Men 10km Individual Time Trial on the first day of action and claimed silver in 13 minutes and 29 seconds. He just missed out on top spot by 10 seconds, as he finished behind Puerto Rico’s Amauri Santiago (13min 19 sec), while Dominican Republic’s Emir David Nina Garcia (13mins 25sec) was third.

Jamaica's National women's Time Trial champion Russell was also in action on day one, as she competed in the Juvenile Women 10km individual Time Trial, where she also placed second in 16 minutes and 47 seconds. The event was won by Bermuda’s Charlotte Millington, with Barbadian Arielle Greaves taking third in a time of 17 minutes and 40 seconds.

Russell returned on the second day and won gold in the 60km Road Race for Juvenile Women, becoming the first Caribbean Road champion from Jamaica since Marloe
Rodman in 2015.

In the juvenile male 70km road race, Chue took an early solo breakaway and opened a 150 metres gap with 15km to go, but was unable to maintain that tempo and got
caught. Both Chue and Francis missed out on the podium, as they placed sixth and 10th respectively.

Simon Yates sealed victory in La Vuelta on this day in 2018 to complete a British clean sweep of the year’s Grand Tours.

The 26-year-old Bury racer headed into the largely processional final stage into Madrid with a one minute and 46 seconds lead and avoided any late mishaps to land his first Grand Tour title.

Yates’ success followed that of Chris Froome at the Giro d’Italia and Geraint Thomas at the Tour de France to round off an unprecedented year for British cycling.

The three titles had never before been held by three riders from the same country.

Yates said: “It’s astonishing really. Growing up I was so accustomed to seeing the French, Italian and Spanish riders lead the way, so for myself, Chris and Geraint to all win a Grand Tour in the same year just shows how far the sport has come in this country.”

Froome, whose Tour-Vuelta double in 2017 meant British riders had at that point won five Grand Tours in a row, paid tribute to Yates’ achievement, saying: “Simon has looked so strong over the last three weeks and it’s great to see him take home the maillot rojo. It’s been a perfect year for British riders.”

Kadeena Cox won C4/C5 500 metres time-trial gold in Rio on this day in 2016 to become the first Briton in 28 years to secure medals in two sports at the same Paralympics.

The then-25-year-old’s velodrome triumph saw her emulate Isabel Barr’s Seoul 1988 success as she added to the T38 100m bronze she had claimed on the athletics track.

Cox was tearful on the podium, recalling her two-year journey from stroke symptoms in May 2014 which were later diagnosed as MS, a progressive disease which made her determined to compete in two sports in Rio.

“I’m just so happy that I’ve finally done it and I’ve got so far – this time two years ago I was at home, about to go into hospital to get my MS diagnosis,” she said.

“To have come this far in such a short period of time is just a relief. I’m glad that I’ve done it.

“A lot of people thought I wouldn’t be able to and there were moments when I doubted myself.

“But I knew when the classification got changed, it was going to be the point where I worked my hardest.

“I absolutely dug in and gave it everything.

“I knew on my day I’d be good enough to beat anyone and I’ve done it.”

World champion Cox won the C4/C5 500 metres time-trial gold in a world record of 35.716 seconds.

The event was factored in her favour, so her time was rounded down to 34.598secs, but she was quicker than everyone else regardless.

Cox went on to seal athletics gold with victory in the T38 400m final to make it a treble of medals in Rio and won two further cycling golds at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021.

Geoffrey Soupe was the surprise winner of stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana as the Frenchman edged out Orluis Aular in a chaotic sprint after a crash-strewn finish in Oliva.

A late corner on the 201km stage from Utiel put favourite Kaden Groves and several other quick men out of position and set up a messy finale, in which TotalEnergies’ Soupe just hung on to beat Caja-Rural’s Aular in a photo finish.

The battle for position had already been significantly disrupted by a big crash a little over six kilometres out which left Thymen Arensman of the Ineos Grenadiers needing lengthy medical treatment before leaving the race in an ambulance.

Earlier in the stage, the Ineos team leader Geraint Thomas had also gone down, and continued to receive treatment to his left knee as the Welshman looked uncomfortable for much of the day, losing another 24 seconds on the line after the crashes contributed to splits in the bunch.

Sepp Kuss, winner of Thursday’s mountain stage to Javalambre, was also caught up in a late incident but quickly got back into the peloton to stay second overall, eight seconds behind 20-year-old Frenchman Lenny Martinez, who retained the red jersey he took on Thursday.

The rest of the main favourites finished in the front group to mean no major changes ahead of Saturday’s return to the mountains.

Geraint Thomas admitted inching ever closer to retirement means he is happy to race in two grand tours this year as he looks to bounce back from his Giro d’Italia heartache in the Vuelta a Espana.

Despite a recurring bacterial infection hampering his Giro preparations, Thomas was in contention up until the penultimate day but he settled for second as Primoz Roglic claimed victory.

Thomas finished 10th in the men’s time trial at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Stirling this month but he can move on from that disappointment as he leads Ineos Grenadiers at the upcoming Vuelta.

It is just the second time Thomas has competed in two of the three big events in a calendar year, and he remarked that doing the 2015 Tour de France and the Vuelta was a “horrible” experience.

A 69th-place finish at the Vuelta eight years ago has been his only taste of the event but being at the “twilight” of his cycling career has channelled his focus.

“It’s quite hard being away from home,” the 37-year-old Welshman said. “I’ve got a young son and my wife at home, that’s tough.

“But it’s one of those things, it’s quite easy to commit when I know I’m at the very end of my career, the twilight of my career.

“I might as well commit to this now and see what I can do. Then I’ve got the rest of my life to chill and drink cocktails and look after Macs (his son).”

While he is one of the favourites for the general classification at the 21-stage Vuelta which starts in Barcelona on Friday with a team time trial, Thomas remains without a contract for next season.

He was in talks with Ineos before the Giro in May but was tight-lipped when asked for an update on Wednesday, as he said: “Nothing to say at the moment but hopefully soon.”

After competing in Scotland, Thomas revealed he headed to Isola in the French Alps alongside Ineos team-mate Laurens De Plus and their families to complete their Vuelta preparations.

“It was disappointing, I wanted to get a better result than that but that’s the way that race went,” Thomas said, reflecting on what happened in Stirling.

“I went up to Isola and had eight days up there with De Plus. We had our families up there which was nice, it didn’t really feel like a camp. I’ve come here ready to go and looking forward to it.

“I’ve been here once before but when I did the Tour and Vuelta, it was horrible, to be honest. I’m a bit more prepared this time. I’m looking forward to a solid race, it will be tough, that’s for sure.”

Tom Pidcock may be both the world and Olympic mountain bike cross-country champion after Saturday’s success in Glentress Forest but he knows he remains an “outsider” in the discipline’s tight community.

Pidcock underlined his supremacy in Saturday’s cross-country Olympic race at the UCI Cycling World Championships as he shrugged off mechanical problems to comfortably beat Sam Gaze, with 10-time world champion Nino Schurter taking bronze.

But after a weekend of recriminations over preferential grid placements given to a handful of star riders – something Pidcock condemned despite benefitting from – and complaints over his aggressive racing style, the 24-year-old admitted his titles do not give him full membership of the club.

Pidcock secured bronze with a late lunge into the final corner of Thursday’s race, sending Luca Schwarzbauer to the ground, and the German then complained that “no mountain biker would do this at all, like a pure mountain biker, (of) the community”.

Pidcock had defended his riding style after the race by quoting Ayrton Senna, saying “if you no longer go for a gap, you’re no longer a (racer)”.

Asked about Schwarzbauer’s comments on Monday, Pidcock told PA Media: “For sure I am an outsider. I don’t know everyone super well. I know the people I see frequently and race against and the British guys, but I am an outsider.

“I don’t do all the races. I don’t know everybody. I only know a few teams that I’ve worked with in the past, but I am an outsider and when I’m at a race I feel that.”

Schwarzbauer called Pidcock “unsportsmanlike” after their coming together, but for Pidcock the incident was forgotten almost immediately as he turned his focus to his primary target – Saturday’s XCO race.

“I was more annoyed I had to wait an hour for the podium,” he said. “I forgot about it after five minutes.

“But I wanted to make sure I didn’t have any regrets from the short track going into the race because that would have annoyed me. I went in to try and get a medal in front of the home crowd so that’s what I did.”

Before the race Schwarzbauer had been one of 20 signatories to an open letter complaining about a UCI decision to adopt a World Cup rule and elevate road racing stars Mathieu van der Poel and Peter Sagan to the fourth row of the race, rather than the 13th row as their UCI ranking should have placed them.

Pidcock also benefited as he was moved up from the fifth row but, speaking at the race, called the move “bull****” given he had sacrificed three weeks of his preparations for the Tour de France to race in the Novo Mesto World Cup and secure enough UCI points to ensure a decent starting position.

Hunting points will be his mission again when he shows off the rainbow stripes at the World Cup in his adopted home of Andorra later this month and – after he races the Tour of Britain on the road – World Cups in north America in late September and early October.

Those World Cups mean Pidcock will skip the Il Lombardia road race, but his eyes are firmly on defending his Olympic mountain bike title in Paris next summer, after which the 24-year-old knows it might be time to put away both the mountain bike and cyclo-cross bike to focus purely on the road.

“I think the plan with the team is I commit to mountain bike until Paris and after that we have a talk,” he said.

“I sacrificed three weeks of prep for the Tour to do the mountain bike. If I want to ever try and really win the Tour I would have to focus on that, but at the moment it’s working quite well.”

:: Tom Pidcock is a Red Bull athlete. To find out more visit his athlete profile on RedBull.Com

Beth Shriever set her sights on defending her Olympic crown in Paris after reclaiming the women’s BMX racing world title at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow on Sunday.

The 24-year-old Londoner bossed every round of the competition to take back the title she won just weeks after enjoying Olympic glory in Tokyo in 2021, but there was disappointment for Olympic silver medallist Kye Whyte as he crashed out of the men’s competition in the semi-finals.

Shriever lined up in Gate 1 for the final and had opened up a bike length on the rest of field by the opening corner to leave no doubt as to where the rainbow stripes were going.

Shriever started the day as favourite on home soil, and said the way she had handled that pressure bodes well for next summer’s Games in Paris.

“Everything went well, it was pretty much the perfect lap,” she said. “I didn’t know who was behind me or how close they were so I knew to just kept pushing and I’m over the moon.

“I’ve done a lot of stuff with my psychologist practicing things and this is the perfect practice leading into Paris. I’ve trained hard, trained well, I was in the perfect position for this race and just trusted myself, I can’t believe it.

“All my processes, I’ve stuck to it, and it all worked, so it’s unreal.”

Shriever was also fully able to enjoy the celebrations this time, having won her previous titles during the pandemic in deserted venues.

“I’ve always dreamt of being able to go to my parents after the race, I’ve literally dreamt of it all week so to actually do it was next level,” she said. “I’ll have this memory for the rest of my life so I’m very grateful.”

Whyte’s hopes of a medal on a track where he has previously enjoyed success ended in the semi-final when a shot of pain through the left shoulder he has previously dislocated sent him off the track.

“I didn’t have a good start,” Whyte said. “I didn’t mind not having a good start because I knew what the plan was if I didn’t have a good start and the plan stuck, but someone came on the inside and I went slightly off track, lost a bit of speed.

“I tried to gain it back on the jump but I eased up on the jump and nearly went over the bars, took myself out of the race. I made a big mistake, it happens.

“I’ve dislocated this left shoulder before and when I hit the jump it just kind of sent a bit of pain through my shoulder and as I’ve landed, I’ve landed awkwardly and it hurt again. It felt like it came out but it was in when I felt it now. We’ll see what the doctor says when I get home.”

Ross Cullen advanced to the final, his first at this level, and finished sixth as Romain Mahieu claimed gold.

Emily Hutt won silver for Great Britain in the women’s under-23 race, narrowly beaten by France’s Tessa Martinez.

Tom Pidcock became the first British man to be crowned world mountain bike cross-country champion at the elite level with a dominant victory in the Olympic race at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glentress Forest.

The 24-year-old rode away from 10-time world champion Nino Schurter with two and a half of the eight laps remaining and soloed to win ahead of Sam Gaze, having the time for a slightly awkward celebration as he crossed the line with a Yorkshire flag wrapped around his face.

Pidcock adds the world mountain bike title to the Olympic crown he took in Tokyo and the cyclo-cross world title he won in 2022, plus achievements on the road that include a Tour de France stage win last year and victory at Strade Bianche this spring.

“It feels good,” Pidcock said. “It’s a big relief. It’s been a long week building up to this.

“In front of my home crowd, it’s pretty special. Coming down the final straight, I could finally soak it all in.

“Before that, the last few laps were so stressful. My gears were not working on the last lap, they were jumping on every climb – and Gaze was coming behind. I thought it could all go in the bin at any moment.”

Pidcock made this event a major target in his season, reluctantly skipping last weekend’s road race in order to commit all of his energies.

Mathieu Van Der Poel, who won that road race and then pitched up here, crashed out on the opening circuit.

Pidcock sliced through the field at the start, going from 30th to fifth in the first two laps and then continuing to push on the pace to make sure it would be a very selective battle for the medals.

There was controversy before the race as the UCI adopted World Cup rules to elevate road stars Pidcock, Van Der Poel and Peter Sagan to the fourth row of the grid, rather than further back according to their ranking, with the governing body even admitting the move was because of the “added value” they bring.

That led to several rivals co-signing an open letter condemning the decision, feeding into the narrative that began after Thursday’s short-track race when German Luca Schwarzbauer said Pidcock was not part of the community of “pure mountain bikers” after a late crash between the pair.

Pidcock, who took time out of his Tour build-up to collect UCI points in World Cup races in Novo Mesto in May, said the decision to change the grid was “bulls***”.

“It’s outrageous,” he said. “A rule like that needs to be put in place in January. I sacrificed three weeks of my preparation for the Tour to try and get some points and this week they changed the rule. You can’t do that. It’s not fair.”

Evie Richards settled for sixth in the women’s race as French star Pauline Ferrand-Prevot successfully defender her Olympic title days after also defending her short track crown.

Ferrand-Prevot was effectively in a race of her own, with more than a minute’s cushion over team-mate Loana Lecomte, while Richards – third in Thursday’s short track race – tried to battle Alessandra Keller, Puck Pieterse and Mona Mitterwallner for bronze but faded in the last couple of laps.

““I was tired to start, so I just tried to hang on for dear life after getting a good start,” Richards said. “I pushed as hard as I could and couldn’t stay with that medal – but I gave it all that I could. I think I was still tired from the short track, to be honest.

“I just felt I was really happy that I could push, that I was competitive, I wasn’t off the back – and the crowds were amazing. I feel really lucky that I got to race in front of them today.”