The Netherlands dominate 2025 Track Worlds
The Track World Championships culminated on Sunday after five days of intense racing in Santiago's Peñalolén velodrome in Chile. It was a competition dominated by the Netherlands, with Harrie Lavreysen taking four world titles to bring his personal career tally to 20: keirin, kilo, team and individual sprint, the latter facing off against sprint nemesis Matthew Richardson (formerly Australia, now GB). Lavreysen's teammate Hetty van der Wouw also scored the 500m TT and individual titles, as well as the team sprint – the Netherlands Sprint squad remains firmly on top of the world.
Lorena Wiebes was also having a stellar track Worlds at the end of a sensational road season, defending her Scratch world title on the first day, then dominating the Omnium to take gold ahead of Marion Borras (France) and Amalie Dideriksen (Denmark). Wiebes and teammate Lisa van Belle were then leading the Madison on Saturday until the pair crashed out, Weibes worryingly clutching her shoulder the moment she came to a stop trackside. However, it was later confirmed that neither rider had suffered significant injury.
Elsewhere, some of the particularly notable results include a Madison title for Britons Maddie Leach and Katie Archibald, a career-first gold medal for Ireland's Lara Gillespie in the Elimination, and in the Team Pursuit, wins for the men of Denmark and Italy's ever-reliable women's squad.
One of the stand-out stories of the Championships came in the men's Elimination in which the retiring Elia Viviani took only his third-ever World Championship gold ahead of Campbell Stewart (New Zealand).
