A world record has fallen at the 2026 UCI Track World Championships, with Jonathan Milan breaking his own benchmark in the Individual Pursuit.
The Italian clocked a stunning time of 3:58.850 on Friday, and did so not in a medal ride but in qualifying.
That means he still has racing to do, and that he could yet miss out on the World Championship title despite breaking the world record. He could, equally, break his own record later today when he faces Denmark's Frederik Madsen – who also qualified in under four minutes – in Friday's final.
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Milan broke the world record that he himself set two years ago at the 2024 Track Worlds in Ballerup, Denmark, where he clocked a 3:59.153. He has just taken three tenths of a second out of that.
As with Ballerup, the track for the 2026 Worlds in Shanghai is located near enough at sea level, so there wasn't the advantage of the lower air density of a track at altitude, which comes with lower air density. Four world records fell at the European Championships earlier this year, held at a track in Konya, Turkey, at just over 1,000 metres of altitude.
Milan's time marks another frontier in the progression of the men's Individual Pursuit world record, which just 10 years ago stood at 4:10.543. The four-minute mark was long seen as a ceiling, but the USA's Ashton Lambie was the first to break through it in 2021 – at altitude at the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico – before the Italian star Filippo Ganna nudged it down at the Track Worlds in 2022 in Paris.
Great Britain's Josh Charlton took the record for a matter of hours at the 2024 Worlds before it was quickly bettered by Milan, who has now surpassed himself and become the first rider to break 3:59.
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