Katie Archibald won Great Britain’s first gold medal at this year’s World Championships after securing a dominant victory in the women’s omnium.
Archibald finished on 137 points after backing up wins in the scratch, tempo and elimination races with a measured ride in the climactic points race.
Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky finished second with Italy’s Elisa Balsamo in third.
“I turned up pretty nervous,” said Archibald, who added to her maiden omnium world title in 2017.
“I saw the other riders in the scratch race and the elimination and thought ‘gee, they look fast’.
“Especially with the qualifiers, it was like a nice warm-up for the event, and when you have the first event go well, like I did with the scratch race, it gives you more confidence to race aggressively as you go through the day.”
The 27-year-old’s victory is the latest success in what has been a superb 2021.
In August, she became Olympic madison champion alongside Laura Kenny at the Tokyo Games before securing three gold medals at the European Championships in Switzerland earlier this month.
“This has been a fantastic year,” added Archibald, who narrowly avoided a crash involving several riders in the elimination race earlier on Friday.
“I race in the madison with Neah Evans tomorrow and we have our qualification event in 13 hours, so a nice spin, some ice because I hit my knee in the elimination knock and then just keep going.”
Leading by 20 points heading into the points race, Archibald produced another confident ride to finish 18 points ahead of Kopecky and 21 better off than world road race champion Balsamo.
